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jyiAYNARD'S 

English • Classic -Series 



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CAMPAICN SPEECHES 



OF" 



UNCOLNandDOUGLAS 



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NEW YORK: 

Matnaed, Meeeill, & Co., 

29, 31, AND 33 East Niuetkenth Stkeet. 



Er^UHSi^'CLAssic Series, 

FOR 

Classes in English Literature, Beading, Grammar, etc. 

EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN S0HOLAR3. 

Eadi Volume contains a Sketch of the Author's Life, Prefatory and 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. , 



1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 

(Cantos I. and II.) 

2 Milton's li' Allegro, and II Pen- 

seroso. 

3 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 

5 Moore's Fire Worshippers. 

(Lalla Rookh. Selected.) 

6 Goldsmith's Deserted Village. 

7 Scott's Marinion. (Selections 

from Canto VI.) 

8 Scott's liay of the LASt Minstrel. 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 

9 Burns'sCotter'sSaturdayNight, 

and other Poems 

10 Crabbe's The Villaere. 

11 Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. 

(Abridgment of Part I.) 

12 Macaulay's Kssay on Banyan's 

Pilgrina's Progress. 

13 Macaulay's Armada, and other 

Poems. 

14 Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- 

nice. (Selections Irom Acts I., 
III., and IV.) 

15 Goldsmith's Traveller. 

16 Hogg's Queen's Wake, and Kil- 

meny. 

17 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 

18 Addison's Sir Roger de Cover- 

ley. 

19 Gray's Elegy in a Country 

Churchyard. 
SO Scott's LAdy of the L.ake. (Canto* 

I) 

21 Shakespeare's As You Like It, 

etc. (Selections.) 

22 Shakespeare's King John, and 

Richard II. (Selections.) 

23 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 

ry v., Henry VI. (Selections.) 

24 Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 

25 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 

26 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

27 Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

I. and n.) 

28 Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 

29 Milton's Comas. 

30 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 

Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, and 
Tlthonus. 



31 Irrlng's Sketch Book. (Selec- 

tions.) 

32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. 

(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings* 

(Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson's The Two Voices, 

and A Dream of Fair Women. 

37 Memory Quotations. 

38 Cavalier Poets. 

39 Drydeu's Alexander's Feast, 

and MacFlecknoe. 

40 Keats'sTh- Eve of St. Agnes. 

41 Irving.'8 Le^Ciid of Sleepy Hol- 

low^. 

42 Lamb's Tales from Shake- 

speare. 

43 Le Row's How to Teach Bead- 

ing, 

44 AVehster*8 Banker Hill Ora- 

tions. 

45 The Academy Orthofipist. A 

Manual of Pronunciation. 

46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hymn 

on the Nativity. 

47 Bryant's Thanatopsis, and other 

Poems. 

48 Buskin's Modern Painters. 

(Selections.) 
^9 The Shakespeare Speaker. 
50 Thackeray's Roundabout Pa- 

I pers. 
61 Webster's Oration on Adams 

and Jefferson. 

52 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Life and Death of 

Jason. 

54 Burke's Speech on American 

Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the I«ock* 

56 Tennyson's Elaine. 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the iBneid. 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 

Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 

con. (Condensed.) 

62 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 

lish Version by Rev. B. Potter ,M. A. 



(Additional numbers on next page.) 



MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. 216 



SPEECHES OF 



LIKCOLN AND DOUGLAS 



IN THE CxOIPAIGN OF 1858 



WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

EDGAR COIT MORRIS, A. M. 

Prof essor of English in the Syramse University 




NEW YORK 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, Sc CO. 

89, 31, and 33 East Nineteenth Street 



New Series, No. 90. April 1, 1899. Published monthly. Subscription price 
$1.25. Entered at Post Office, New York, as Second-Class Matter. 



E^s 



1 



29347 

PEEFACE 



.L-is 



The purpose of this reprint of some of the famous Lin- 
co]n-Doug"las papers is to put them into such form that 
they may be used in the classroom as examples of oral 
debate. Naturally, therefore, the Introduction is an at- 
tempt at the briefest possible explanation of the events 
that led up to these debates. Likewise the notes on the 
text are merelj' to explain the allusions to facts and people 
not now very familiar. For historical purposes, the notes 
might have been made more elaborate; but such books as 
the *' Life of Lincoln " by John T. Morse, Jr., in the x\meri- 
can Statesmen Series (Boston, 1894, Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co.), and Nicolay and Hay's " Life of Lincoln " (New York, 
The Century Co.) are so easily accessible in most public 
libraries that purely historical questions have been dis- 
regarded. 

The text used is substantially that of the campaign 
edition of these papers jiublished at Columbus in 18G0, 
by Follett, Foster & Co. Preceding the title page of that 
edition is a letter from ^Ix- Lincoln in which he says, 
" The copies I send yeTu, are as reported and printed 
by the respective friends, oT Senator Douglas and myself, 
at the time — that is, his by his friends and mine by mine. 
It would be an unwarrantable liberty for us to change a 
word or a letter in his, and the changes I have made in 
mine, you perceive, are verbal only, and very few^ in 

Edgar Coit Morris. 
Syracuse UNiTEB|l!r5>_ Janwa7'2/, 1899. 



Copyright JJ99, b^Maynard, :Merri]l, & Co. 



INTRODUCTION 

The Missouri Compromise grew out of the struggle be- 
tween the North and the South over the admission of !Mis- 
souri to statehood in the Union. By the Ordinance of 
1787, whereby the Northwest Territory was ceded to the 
Confederation by tlie various states, it was expressly 
agreed that slavery should never be established in that 
territory. But the South desired Missouri to be admitted 
with a constitution which would allow the people to 
choose whether or not they would have slavery; the North 
held such a constitution to be a violation of the Ordinance 
of 1787, and therefore illegal. This controversy was ended 
by the Act of March 6, 1820, " whereby the people of the 
territory of Missouri were allowed to form a state Govern- 
ment with no restrictions against slaver>^; but a clause 
also enacted that slavery should never be permitted in any 
part of the remainder of the i)ul)lic territory Ijing north 
of the parallel of 30° 30'." ' 

During the next two decades it became the tacit agree- 
ment of political leaders that the number of slave and free 
states should be kept equal in order that the Senate 
should be equally divided. But a difficulty soon arose, 
due to the fact that the Northern people were eager 
to settle new territory, and that the available territory 
was north of 3G° 30'. When Kansas asked for statehood, 
there was no corresponding slave state ready. Oppor- 
tunelj% however, Texas had revolted from Mexico, had 
declared its independence, and asked for admission to the 
Union. The Mexican War followed, forced upon Mexico by 
the slavery element of the Union for the main purpose of 
obtaining more territorj^ south of 36° 30', As a result, 



I Morse's "Life of Lincoln," vol. i., p. 83. 



4 INTRODUCTION 

Texas, New Mexico, and California were added to the slave 
territory. 

In 1849 gold was discovered in California. The crowds 
that hurried there made some new form of government 
imperative. Although in the section of the country 
usually considered slave territory, and although settled 
very largely from slaveholding states, they applied for 
statehood under an anti-slavery constitution. About the 
same time came a demand from the South for a moie 
effective Fugitive Slave law, and a protest against the Wil- 
mot proviso (that all of the new territory acquired by the 
Mexican War should be free territory), asserting that 
" Congress could not constitutionally interfere with the 
property rights of citizens of the United States in the ter- 
ritories, and that slaves were property." ^ 

About this same time the theory that Congress could 
not interfere with slaverj- in the territories gave rise to 
the plausible war-cry of " popular sovereignty," over 
which the people became so enthusiastic that when the 
region afterward made into the states of Kansas and Ne- 
braska asked for organization as a territory, a bill was 
introduced into the Senate by Senator Douglas stating 
that the Missouri Compromise was not effective in this 
territory. " A later amendment declared the Compromise 
to be ' inconsistent with the principle of non-interference 
b3' Congress with slaverj- in the states and territories as 
recognized by the legislation of 1850,' and therefore * in- 
operative and void; it being the true intent and meaning 
of this Act not to legislate slavery into any territory or 
state nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the Consti- 
tution.' " ^ 

This bill, passed by Congress and sanctioned by the 
President, thoroughly aroused all of the anti-slavery 
people of the North. Among these Lincoln was promi- 
nent; yet he did not fully commit himself to the extreme 

2 Morse's " Life of Lincoln," vol. 1., p. 88. 

3 Morse's " Life of Lincoln," vol. i., p. M. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

position of Owen Lovejoy * and the other Abolitionists. He 
was rather considered as the Illinois leader of the opposi- 
tion to the encroachments of slavery on the North. On 
this account he was elected to the state legislature in 
1854, but resig-ned, lest by holding- that office he should be- 
come ineligible to the United States senatorship in 1855. 
He failed of this election to the Senate, but he developed 
such g-reat streng^th that he made the election of Lyman 
Trumbull'^ possible by turning over his following to Trum- 
bull, thereby showing also his opposition to the Douglas 
policy in the Kansas-Nebraska bill. 

In the Pi-esidential campaign of 185G Lincoln received 110 
votes for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket, the 
platform of which upheld the " right and duty of Con- 
gress to proliibit in the territories these twin relics of 
barbarism, polygamy and slavery." In the Democratic 
Convention of the .same year the South favored the re- 
election of President Pierce, with Douglas as their second 
choice; the noi'tliern Democrats, however, favored Bu- 
chanan. Although Buchanan was nomiiuited aiul later 
received the election, yet Douglas had shown such a fol- 
lowing that he considered himself a prominent candidate 
for the place four years later. On account of his prestige 
in the party, when the senatorial contest came on in Illi- 
nois, in 1858, the pro-slavery Democrats naturally looked 
to him as his own successor, while the anti-slavery AYhigs 
and Eepublicans turned as naturally to Lincoln as their 
choice. The great issue in the contest could be nothing 
else but the extension or restriction of slavery; that was 
the one vital topic of discussion in the North and in the 
South. The contest began when Lincoln made his speech 
at Springfield, June 17, 1858, at the close of the Republican 
State Convention, by which he had been named as the 
party candidate for Senator. This speech was answered 
by Douglns, July 9, in Chicago, and was followed by sev- 
eral other speeches by both men. 

On July 25, 1858, Lincoln wrote Douglas proposing that 
they should hold a series of joint debates at several of the 

* See note on p. 21. ^ See note on p. 9. 



6 INTRODUCTION 

most important cities and towns of the state. After a 
brief correspondence it was agreed to have seven such de- 
bates at the following places and dates: Ottawa, August 
21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, Sej)t ember 15; 
Charleston, September 18; Galesburgh, October 7; Quincy, 
October 13; Alton, October 15. The plan, as stated by Mr. 
Douglas and agreed to by ]Mr. Lincoln, was " I agree to 
your suggestion that Ave shall alternately open and close 
the discussion, I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can 
reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then fol- 
low for half an hour. At Freeport you shall open the dis- 
cussion and speak one hour, I will follow for an hour and 
a half, and you can then replj'^ for half an hour. We will 
alternate in like manner in each successive place." 

The seven debates occurred according to the above- 
mentioned plan. For nearly two months they kept the 
great national question before the people of Illinois in 
such a masterful manner that the^' finallj^ aroused the 
closest interest of the whole nation. The ensuing elec- 
tion, however, was confusing in its significance and un- 
satisfactory to both parties. The Republicans received 
126,084 votes, the Douglas Democrats received 121,940 votes, 
the Lecompton Democrats received 5091 votes. Although 
Lincoln thus received the largest popular vote, it should be 
kept in mind that the Lecompton Democrats opposed 
Douglas for his failure to support the pro-slavery consti- 
tution for Kansas, so, on the principle involved in the 
debates, they w^ere opposed to Lincoln much more than 
they were to Douglas. This makes the popular vote stand 
947 against Lincoln's ideas on the restriction of slavery. 
In the joint ballot of the state Senate and House his de- 
feat was still greater, for on account of the district divi- 
sions of Illinois the Senate stood 14 Democrats to 11 Re- 
publicans, and the House stood 40 Democrats to 35 Re- 
publicans. Douglas was therefore returned to the United 
States Senate, but his popular support was so small that 
he, the great leader of the Democratic party in the nation, 
felt the vote to be almost a defeat. 



SPEECHES OF 
LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 



SPEECH OF HON. ABllAHAM LINCOLN 

At Springfield, June 17, 1858 

[The following speech w as delivered at Spring-field, 111., 
at the close of the Republican State Convention held at 
that time and place, by ^vllich Convention Mr. Lincoln 
had been named as their candidate for U. S. Senator. Mr. 
Donglas was not present.] g 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention: 
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
tending-, we could better judge what to do, and how to do 
it. We are now far into the fifth 3'ear, since a policy was 
initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, 10 
of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the opera- 
tion of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, 
but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not 
cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. 
" A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe 15 
this government cannot endure permanently half slave 
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — 
I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 20 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
extinction; or its advocates will push it foi^vard, till it 

r 



8 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as 

new — North as well as South. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition? 

Let anyone who doubts, carefully contemplate that now 

5 almost complete legal combination — piece of machinery, so 

to speak — compounded of the Nebraska, doctrine, and the 

Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work 

the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; 

but also, let him study the history of its construction, and 

10 trace, if he can," or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evi- 
dences of design, and concert of action, among its chief 
architects, from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more 
than half the states by state Constitutions, and from most 

15 of the national territory by Congressional prohibition.^ 
Four days later, commenced the struggle which ended in 
repealing that Congressional prohibition. This opened all 
the national territory to slavery, and was the first point 
gained. 

20 But, so far. Congress only had acted; and an indorsement 
by the people, real or apparent, was indispensable, to save 
the point already gained, and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked; but had been 
provided for, as well as might be, in the notable argument 

25 of " squatter sovereignty," otherwise called " sacred right 
of self-government," which latter phrase, though ex- 
pressive of the only rightful basis of any government, was 
so perverted in this attempted use of it as to amount to 
just this: That if any one man choose to enslave anotlier, 

30 no third man shall be allowed to object. That argument 
was incorporated into the Nebraska bill itself, in the lan- 
guage which follows: " It being the true intent and 
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any ter- 
ritory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom; but to leave 

35 the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
to the Constitution of the United States." Then opened 

1 The Congressional prohibition here mentioned is that of the Mis- 
souri Compromise. 



Lincoln's speech, june 17, 1858 9 

the roar of loose declamation in favor of " Squatter Sov- 
ereig-nty,"' and " sacred rig-ht of self-government." " But," 
said opposition members,' " let us amend the bill so as to 
expressly declare that the people of the territory may ex- 
clude slavery." " Not we,'' said the friends of the meas- 5 
ure; and down they voted the amendment. 

While the Nebraska bill was passing- throug-h Congress, 
a law case involving- the question of a neg-ro's freedom, by 
reason of his owner having voluntarily taken him first into 
a free state and then into a territory covered by the Con- 10 
gressional prohibition, and held him as a slave for a long 
time in each, was passing through the U. S. Circuit Court 
for the District of Missouri; and both Nebraska bill and 
law suit were brought to a decision in the same month of 
May, 1854. The negro's name was " Dred Scott," which 15 
name now designates the decision finally made in the case. 
Before the then next Presidential election, the law case 
came to, and was argued in, the Supreme Court of the 
United States; but the decision of it was deferred until 
after the election. Still, before the election. Senator 20 
Trumbull,^ on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading 
advocate of the Nebraska. bill to state his opinion whether 
the people of a territory can constitutionally exclude 
slavery from their limits; and the latter answers: " That 
is a question for the Supreme Court." 25 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the 
indorsement, such as it was, secured. That was the 
second point gained. The indorsement, however, fell 
short of a clear popular majority by nearly four hundred 
thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not overwhelmingly 30 



2 The "opposition members" are those who supported Senator 
Salmon P. Chase's amendment to the Nebraska bill which amendment 
is further debated by Mr. Lincoln on p. 47, and by Mr. Douglas on 
p. 61. 

9 Judge Lyman Trumbull (1813-96) was a judge of the Supreme 
Court of Illinois, a Democratic United States Senator from 1854 to 1872, 
and for a time chairman of the judiciary committee of the National 
Senate. 



10 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing- President,* in his 
last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed 
back upon the people the weight and authority of the in- 
dorsement. The Supreme Court met again; did not 
5 announce their decision, but ordered a re-argument. The 
Presidential inauguration came, and still no decision of 
the court; but the incoming President in his inaugural 
address fervently exhorted the x^^opl^ to abide bj" the 
forthcoming decision, whatever it might be. Then, in a 

10 few days, came the decision. 

The reputed author' of the Nebraska bill finds an early 
occasion to make a speech at this capital indorsing the 
Dred Scott decision, and vehemently denouncing all oppo- 
sition to it. The new President, too, seizes the early occa- 

15 sion of the Silliman "^ letter to indorse and strongly con- 
strue that decision, and to express his astonishment that 
any different view had ever been entertained! 

At length a squabble springs up between the President 
and the author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question 

20 of fact, whether the Lecompton Constitution "' was or was 
not, in any just sense, made by the people of Kansas; and 
in that quarrel the latter declares that all he wants is a 
fair vote for the people, and that he cares not whether 
slavery be voted doicn or voted up. I do not understand 



* Franklin Pierce. 

6 On p. 19 Mr. Douglas says that he introduced the bill. 

^ The SilHman letter was addressed to President Bnchanan by the 
** electors of the State of Connecticut" hi regard to the situation in 
Kansas. In reply, the President makes the following reference to the 
Dred Scott case: " Slavery existed at that period [at the time Kansas 
was organized as a territory] and still exists in Kansas, under the 
Constitution of the United States. This point has at last been finally 
decided by the highest tribunal known to our laws. How it could ever 
have been seriously doubted is a mystery." — Senate Documents, 1st 
Session, 35th Congress, vol. i., Doc. No. 8, p. 74. 

■^ The Lecompton Constitution was formed by the pro-slavery men of 
Kansas in 1857, without the aid of the anti-slavery luen, who had 
withdrawn from the constitutional conventiop. It, of course, favored 
slavery. 



Lincoln's speech, june 17, 1858 11 

his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted 
down or voted up, to be intended by him other than as an 
apt definition of the policy he would impress upon the pub- 
lic mind — the principle for which he declares he has suf- 
fered so much, and is ready to suffer to the end. And well 5 
may he cling* to that principle. If he has any parental feel- 
ing, well may he cling- to it. That principle is the only 
shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the 
Dred Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " squatted out 
of existejice, tumbled down like temporary scaffolding — IQ 
like the mold at the foundry served through one blast and 
fell b.ick into loose sand— helped to carry an election, and 
then was kicked to the winds. His late joint struggle with 
the Eepublicans, against the Lecompton Constitution, in- 
volves nothing of the original Nebraska doctrine. That 15 
struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to 
make their own constitution — upon which he and the Re- 
publicans have never differed. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connec- 
tion with Senator Douglas's " care not '' policy, consti- 20 
tute the piece of machinery, in its present state of ad- 
vancement. This was the third point gained. The work- 
ing points of that machinery are: 

First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, 
and no descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of 25 
any state, in the sense of that term as used in the Consti- 
tution of the United States. This point is made in order 
to deprive the negro, in every possible event, of the benefit 
of that provision of the United States Constitution, which 
declares that " The citizens of each state shall be entitled 30 
to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
states." 

Secondly, That, " subject to the Constitution of the 
United States," neither Congress nor a territorial Legis- 
lature can exclude slavery from any United States terri- 35 
tory. This point is made in order that individual men 
ma}' fill up the territories with slaves, without danger of 
losing them as proj)ertj^ and thus to enhance the chances 
of permanency to the institution through all the future. 



12 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

Thirdly, -That whether the holding- a negro in actual 
slavery in a free State, makes him free, as against the 
holder, the United States courts will not decide, but will 
leave to be decided by the courts of anj^ slave state the 
5 negro may be forced into by the master. This point is 
made, not to be pressed immediateh'; but, if acquiesced 
in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at 
an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that 
what Dred Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred 

10 Scott, in the free state of Illinois, every other master ma\' 
lawfully do with any other one, or one thousand slaves, 
in Illinois, or in any other free state. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand in hand with it, 
the Nebraska doctrine, or what is left of it, is to educate 

15 and mold public opinion, at least Northern public opinion, 
not to care whether slavery is voted down or voted up. 
This shows exactly where we now are; and partially, also, 
whither we are tending. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, 

20 and run the mind over the string of historical facts 
already stated. Several things will now appear less dark 
and mysterious than they did when they were transpiring. 
The people w ere to be left " perfectly free," " subject only 
to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to do 

25 with it, outsiders could not then see. Plainly enough 
now, it was an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott 
decision to aftersvard come in, and declare the perfect free- 
dom of the people to be just no freedom at all. Why was 
the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the 

30 people, voted down? Plainly enough now: the adoption 
of ft would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott deci- 
sion. Why was the court decision held up? Why even 
a Senator's individual opinion withheld, till after the 
Presidential election? Plainly' enough now: the speak- 

35 ing out then would have damaged the perfectl^^ free argu- 
ment upon which the election w as to be carried. Why the 
outgoing President's felicitation on the indorsement? 
Why the delay of a re-argument? Why the incoming 
President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision? 



Lincoln's speech, june IT, 1858 13 

These tilings look like the cautious patting- and petting of 
a spirited horse preparatory to mounting him, when it is 
dreaded that he may give the rider a fall. And Why the 
hasty after-indorsement of the decision by the President 
and others? ^ 

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adapta- 
tions are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot 
of framed timbers, diiferent portions of which we know 
have been gotten out at different times and places and 
by different workmen— Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and 10 
.lames,'' for instance— and when we see these timbers joined 
together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house 
or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and 
all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces 
exactly ada})ted to their respective places, and not a piece 15 
too many or too few — not omitting even scaffolding — or, 
if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame 
exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in— in 
sv.ch a case, we find it impossible not to believe that 
Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all under- 20 
stood one another fioni the beginning, and all worked 
upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first 
blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, 
the people of a state as well as territorj', were to be left 25 
" perfectly free," " subject only to the Constitution." 
Why mention a state? They were legislating for terri- 
tories, and not for or about states. Certainly the people 
of a state are and ought to be subject to the Constitution 
of the United States; but why is mention of this lugged 30 
into this merely territorial law? Why are the people of 
a territory and the people of a state therein lumped to- 
gether, and their relation to the Constitution therein 
treated as being precisely the same? While the opinion 
of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott 35 



« These names evidently were intended to refer to Senator Stephen A. 
Douglas, ex-President Franklin Pierce, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, 
and President James Buchanan. 



14 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

case, and the separate opinions of all the concurring* 
Judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the 
United States neither permits Congress nor a territorial 
Legislature to exclude slavery from any United States 
5 territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the 
same Constitution permits a state, or the people of a state, 
to exclude it. Possibly, this is a mere omission; but who 
can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis ^ had sought to get 
into the opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the 

10 people of a state to exclude slavery from their limits, just 
as Chase and Mace ^*' sought to get such declaration, in be- 
half of the people of a territorj^ into the Nebraska bill; 
— I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not have been 
voted down in the one case as it had been in the other? 

15 The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power 
of a state over slavery, is made by Judge Xelson," He ap- 
proaches it more than once, using the precise idea, and 
almost the language, too, of the Nebraska act. On one 
occasion, his exact languag'e is " Except in cases where the 

20 power is restrained by the Constitution of the United 
States, the law of the state is supreme over the subject of 
slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power 

8 John McLean (1785-1861) and Benjamin E. Curtis (1809-74) were 
Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court at the time of 
the trial of the Dred Scott case. They dissented from the majority, 
''holding the position that slavery was contrary to right principle, 
and was only sustained by local law."— *' i\^a^20?i«Z Cyclopwdia of 
Amencan Biography,'''' vol. ii., p. 469. 

10 Daniel Mace (1811-67) was a Democratic Congressional repre- 
sentative from Indiana, 1851-55, and an Independent representative, 
1855-57. Salmon P. Chase (1808-73) was originally a Democratic 
Senator from Ohio, but left the party on the nomination of Pierce for 
the presidency, in 1852. From that time he became prominent in the 
anti-slavery movement, was made Secretary of the Treasury under 
Lincoln, and succeeded Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice of the United 
States Supreme Court. 

11 Samuel Nelson (1792-1873), Associate Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court, concurred with Chief Justice Taney and the majority 
in the Dred Scott case, on the main issues, but made a separate state- 
ment of some points, as did others of the concilrring judges. 



Lincoln's speech, june 17, 1858 15 

of the state is so restrained by the United States Consti- 
tution, is left an open question, precisely as the same 
question, as to the restraint on the i^ower of the terri- 
tories, was left open in the Nebraska act. Put this and 
that together, and we have another nice little niche, which 5 
we may, ere loni^-, see filled with another Supreme Court 
decision, declaring- that the Constitution of the United 
states does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its 
limits. And this may especially be expected if the doc- 
trine of " care not whether slavery be voted down or voted IQ 
up," shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give 
promise that such a decision can be maintained when 
made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being 
alike lawful in all the states. Welcome, or unwelcome, 15 
such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon 
us, unless the power of the present political dynasty^- shall 
be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly 
dreaming that the people of ^Missouri are on the verge of 
making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality 20 
instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave 
state. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, 
is the work now before all those who would prevent that 
consummation. That is what we have to do. How can 
we best do it? 25 

There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
friends, and yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas is 
the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that 
object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he 
now has a little quarrel with the present head of the 30 
dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a 
single point, upon which he and we have never differed. 
They remind us that he is d great man, and that the 
largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. 
But " A living dog is better than a dead lion." '^ Judge 35 
Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a 

12 The " present political dynasty " refers to President Buchanan 
and the Democratic jDarty. 
^3 Ecclesiastes ix. 4. 



J 6 SPEECHES OF irwnrw .^ 

ilN-COLN AND DOtTGLAS 

caged and toothless one Hn-,. 

of slavery? He don't care anvthf :''^°'' *^ ^<'™' 

"■i^sion is impressing tZ "pub, V "' «'^ ^™ 

«»o«* «. A leading Don^L n '"' " *° ^'"•'- "<"■ 

SDouglas-s superior taleM Win r°""? "euspaper ,hi 

""ai Of the Afriean , .'" ^d" n '° ^^^'^* '''^ 

lieve an effort to revive that T^ ■ ""' ^""^-'"^ 

has not said so. Does he real v fV 't "''P™""'''"^- 

how can he resist it? For vei! I I ""■ ^"* " " 

10 it a sacred right of whitf men to tat ''^ '"'"''''' *° P""' 

new territories. Can he nr , , ''«'™ ^'^^<^« i^to , 

-cred right to ^7 them wh '" '':"' •''^' " ^ '-^ 

cheapest? And unqnest onably^h ^'^ '''" "^ """^^ 

cheaper in Africa than in "rgiln 'J'" "^ """^ 

15 power to reduce the whole Zfl ^"^ ''""« «" '» » 

n>cre right of property and a T ,°' ''''"'''■ *° °"« "^ 

foreign slave trade-how ctn hi" ;°"' ''" '" "PP^"^ ^^ 

"property- shall be >ertecth ^r' f ""* '"""^ '^ '^ 

as a protection to the home ,Ti . """'^^^ he does 

20 producers will probablyToVask th . """ "^ '"' '""' 

"holly without a ground of ^'^.^P^^'^'ion, he will I 

Senator n„ . ^^ """"^ °' opposition. 

oenator Douglas holds, we know tt. . 

f"ily be wiser to-day than he w^I' f ' """ '"•''y "»hl 

rightfully change when he tin V-'"""^-*''''* ^' ""a- 

25 »e. for that rf,son run ahead f' T™"^' ^"' -' 

make any particula; chan'e o,' ? .' " '""* '^'^ "" 

ffiven no intimation? Can we' °f T k"' '''' ''™^^"- ha. 

any such vague inference/!w ^ '""" '"^"°" "?"" 

misrepresent Judge Douo-Z.^.f " ' .^' ''''''•"' ^ "''^h not to 

30 lives, or do aught that ca^nh. ""'' ''"''*'°" "^'^ "«- 
Whenever, if ever, he and we P'^'"^""''"^ ^f-nsive to him. 

ciple so that ou; cause 1 "T '"""^ *°^^*'''^'- °" P""" 
great abilitv. I hope to b " ' ""''•''"'^'"^ ^o™ his 
obstacle. ButeleaX he is It' ""''' "° adventitious 
35 pretend to be-he doe's no nro °°'' "'""^ "^""''^ "^"^^ »°* 
Our cause, then ZltT ^?""^' "'='■ t° "e. 
its own undoubted frndV","'^*'' 1°' '"''' '^°"""^'"' b^'. 
whose hearts are in the wo7k ! 'T"" '"""'' "'^ f^^^- 

Two years ago the Eepubl ca'^r''; 'th""''/"'" '"'^ '"^""*- 
i uiicans ol the nation mustered 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 17 

^er thirteen hundred thousand strong-. We did this 
ider the single impulse of resistance to a common dan- 
T, with every external circumstance against us. Of 
range, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gath- 
'ed from the fom- winds, and formed and fought the C 
ittle through, iiiulcrllM' constant, hot fircof a disciplined, 
rond, and pamj)erc(l enemy. Did wf l)ra\e ail then, to 
liter now? — now, wlien that same enemy is wavering, 
ssevered and belligerent? The result is not doubtful, 
e shall not fail— if we stand firm, we shall not fuU. Wise 10 
)unsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner 
' later, the victory is sure to come. 



FIRST JOINT DKIJATE, AT OTTAWA 

AuiiHst 21, 1S58 

MR. Douglas's speech 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before you to-dav lor 
le purpose of discussing the leading political topics 
hich now agitate the jmblic mind. By an arrangement 13 
jtween Mr. Lincoln and myself, we are present here to- 
\y for the purpose of having a joint discussion, as the 
spresentatives of the two great political parties of the 
tate and Union, upon the princii)les in issue between 
lose i)arties; and this vast concourse of ]ieo]de sho\\"s 20 
le deep li'eling whieli piM-\a(les 1 he piil)lie mind in ri'gard 
» the questions di\iding us. 

Prior to l^i54 this country was divided into two great 
)litical parties, known as t lii' Whig and Democratic 
irties. Both were national and i)atriotic, advocating 25 
•inciples that were universal in their application. An 
d line Whig could proclaim his principles in Louisiana 
id A[assachusetts alike. Whig principles had no bound- 
•y sectional line — they were not limited by the Ohio 
iver, nor by the Potomac, nor by the line of the free and 30 



18 SPEECHES OP LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

slave states, but applied and were proclaimed wherever 
the Constitution ruled or the American flag- waved over 
the American soil. So it was, and so it is with the great 
Democratic party, which, from the days of JefEerson until 
5 this period, has proven itself to be the historic party of 
this nation. While the Whig- and Democratic parties dif- 
fered in reg-ard to a bank, the tariff, distribution, the 
specie circular " and the sub-treasury, they agreed on the 
great slavery question which now agitates the Union. I 

10 say that the Whig party and the Democratic party agreed 
on this slavery question, while they differed on those 
matters of expediency to which I have referred. The 
Whig party and the Democratic party jointh^ adopted the 
Compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of a proper and 

15 just solution of this slavery question in all its forms. Clay 
was the great leader, with Webster on his right and Cass ^^ 
on his left, and sustained by the patriots in the Whig and 
Democratic ranks, who had devised and enacted the Com- 
promise measures of 1850. 

20 In 1851, the Whig party and the Democratic party 
united in Illinois in adopting resolutions indorsing and 
approving the principles of the Compromise measures of 
1850, as the proper adjustment of that question. In 1852, 
when the Whig party assembled in Convention at Balti- 

25 more for the purpose of nominating a candidate for the 

" ''On the lltb of July, 1836, the Secretary of the Treasiuy issued 
an order, afterwards known as the * specie circular,' in the name of 
the President, ordering the receivers to accept nothing in payment of 
pubhc lands but gold and silver, or, in proper cases, Virginia scrip. 
The chief motive was declared to be ' to discourage the ruinous exten- 
sion of bank issues and bank credit.' This order was denounced by 
all those who were interested in the prevailing inflation and by all the 
believers in the 'credit system.'" — William Graham Sumner, '* A 
History of Banking in All Nations," vol. i., p. 261. 

" Lewis Cass (1782-1866) " was an ardent supporter and main ally of 
Henry Clay in his compromise measures [of 1850], and declared he 
would resign his seat in the Senate if he was instructed by the legis- 
lature [of his State] to support the Wilmot proviso, and he was equally 
opposed to the southern rights doctrine." — ", National Cyclopiedia of 
American Biography,'' vol. v., p. 3. 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 19 

Presidency, the first thing- it did was to declare the Com- 
promise measures of 1850, in substance and in principle, a 
suitable adjustment of that question. | Here the speaker 
was interrupted by loud and long--continued applause.] 
My friends, silence will be more acceptable to me in the 5 
discussion of these questions than applause. I desire to 
address myself to your judg-^nent, your understanding-, 
and youi- consciences, and not to your passions or your 
enthusiasm. When the Democratic Convention assembled 
in Baltimore in the same year, for the purpose of nominat- 10 
ing- a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it also 
adopted the Compromise measures of 1850 as the basis of 
Democratic action. Thus you see that up to 1853-54, the 
Whig party and the Democratic party both stood on the 
same platform with regard to the slavery question. That 15 
platform was the rig-ht of the people of each state and 
each territory to decide their local and domestic institu- 
tions for themselves, subject only to the Federal Consti- 
tution. 

During the session of Congress of 1853-54, I introduced 20 
into the Senate of the United States a bill to organize the 
Territories of Kansas and Nebraska on that jirinciple 
which had been adopted in the Compromise measures of 
1850, approved by the Whig party and the Democratic 
party in Illinois in 1851, and indorsed by the Whig party 25 
and the Democratic party in National Convention in 1852. 
In order that there might be no misunderstanding in rela- 
tion to the principle involved in the Kansas and Nebraska 
bill, I put forth the true intent and meaning" of the act in 
these words: *' It is the true intent and meaning of this 30 
act not to legislate slavery into any state or territory, or 
to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- 
tions in their own way, subject only to the Federal Con- 
stitution." Thus, you see, that up to 1854, w^hen the 35 
Kansas and Nebraska bill was brought into Congress for 
the purpose of carrying out the principles which both 
parties had up to that time indorsed and approved, there 
had been no division in this country in regard to that prin- 



20 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

ciple except the opposition of the Abolitionists.^'' In the 
House of Kepresentatives of the Illinois Legislature, upon 
a resolution asserting that principle, every Whig and every 
Democrat in the House voted in the affirmative, and only 
5 four men voted against it, and those four were old line 
Abolitionists. 

In 1851, Mr. Abraham Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull entered 
into an arrangement, one with the other, and each with 
his respective friends, to dissolve the old Whig party on 

10 the one hand, and to dissolve the old Democratic party on 
the other, and to connect the members of both into an 
Abolition party, under the name and disguise of a Re- 
publican party. The terms of that arrangement between 
Mr, Lincoln and Mr. Trumbull have been jjublished to the 

15 world by Mr. Lincoln's special friend, James H. Matheny, 
Esq.,^' and they were, that Lincoln should have Shields's ^^ 
place in the United States Senate, which was then about 
to become vacant, and that Trumbull should have my seat 
when my term expired. Lincoln went to work to Aboli- 

20 tionize the old Whig party all over the state, pretending 
that he was then as good a Whig as ever; and Trumbull 
went to work in his part of the state preaching Aboli- 
tionism in its milder and lighter form, and trying to 
Abolitionize the Democratic party, and bring old Demo- 

25 crats handcuffed and bound hand and foot into the Aboli- 
tion camp. In pursuance of the arrangement, the parties 
met at Springfield in October, 1854. and proclaimed their 
new platform. Lincoln was -to bring into the Abolition 



1* The Abolition movement took definite form in 1823-24, at which 
time the first American Convention for the Abolition of Slavery con- 
vened in Philadelphia. 

^' Colonel James H. Matheny was a local politician, and Lincoln's 
" friend and manager for twenty years," as quoted by Ward H. Lamon, 
in his " Life of Lincoln," p. 363. 

18 James A. Shields (1810-79) was the man with whom Lincoln came 
near having a duel about some articles that appeared in a Springfield 
paper, and that were said to have been written by Miss Todd. He 
was a United States Senator from Illinois, 18-^9-55, and served in the 
Mexican War. 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 21 

camp the old line Whig-s, and transfer them over to Gid- 
dings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Parson Lovejoj^^'* who 
were ready to receive them and christen them in their 
new faith. They laid down on that occasion a platform 
for their new Republican party, which was to be thus con- 5 
structed. I have the resolutions of their state Convention 
then held, which was the first mass state Convention ever 
held in Illinois by the Black Republican party, and I now 
hold them in my hands and will read a part of them, and 
cause the others to be printed. Here are the most imj)or- 10 
tant and material resolutions of this Abolition-^ platform: 

1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, 
that when parties become subversive of the ends for which 
they are established, or incapable of restoring- the Govern- 
ment to the true principles of the Constitution, it is the 15 
right and duty of the people to dissolve the political bands 
by which they may have been connected therewith, and to 
org-anize new parties upon such principles and with such 
views as the circumstances and exigencies of the nation 
may demand. 20 

2. Resolved, That the times imperativelj^ demand the re- 
organization of parties, and, repiuliating' all previous party 
attachments, names and predilections, we unite ourselves 
together in defense of the liberty and Constitution of the 
country, and will hereafter co-oiierate as the Republican 05 
party, pledged to the accomi)lishment of the following 
purposes: To bring the administration of the Government 
back to the control of first principles; to restore Nebraska 
and Kansas to the position of free territories; as the 
Constitution of the United States vests in the states, and 3Q 

" Joshua R. Gicldings (1795-1864) was a representative from Ohio 
most of the time from 1838 to 1859. He was a distinguished anti- 
slavery leader. Frederick Douglass (1817-95) was a mulatto slave, and 
a noted Abolition oi-ator. Owen Lovejoy (1811-64) was a Congrega- 
tional minister, a Republican representative from Illinois, 1856-62, 
and a radical Abolitionist. 

'^0 Mr. Douglas means that the Republican platform had incorporated 
Abolition sentiments. 



22 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

not in Congress, the power to legislate for the extradition 
of fugitives from la Dor, to repeal and entirely abrogate 
the Fugitive Slave law-^; to restrict slavery to those states 
in which it exists; to prohibit the admission of any more 
5 slave states into the Union; to abolish slaverj^ - in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia; to exclude slavery from all the terri- 
tories over which the General Government has exclusive 
jurisdiction; and to resist the acquirements of any more 
territories unless the practice of slavery therein forever 

10 shall have been prohibited. 

3. Resolved, Tnat in furtherance of these principles we 
will use such Constitutional and law^ful means as shall 
seem best adapted to their accomplishment, and that we 
will support no man for office, under the General or State 

15 Government, who is not positively and fully committed to 
the support of these principles, and whose personal char- 
acter and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable, 
and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and 
ties. 

20 Now, gentlemen, your Black Eepublicans have cheered 
every one of those propositions, and yet I venture to say. 

21 It is almost impossible to condense the Fugitive Slave Law within 
the compass of a note, but the most obnoxious provisions were: (a) that 
alleged fugitive slaves were denied the right of trial by jury, but were 
taken before commissioners appointed for the purpose by the judges 
of the Federal Court, which commissioners had final power in the 
matter; (b) that the commissioner should receive ten dollars if he 
returned the slave to the alleged owner, but only five dollars if he set 
the slave free; (c) that severe penalties could be exacted in favor of 
the slave owner if the officers refused to aid or were lax in their 
search; (d) that the marshals could appoint any citizen, or call upon 
tlie bystanders to aid in the search or capture of a fugitive slave. It 
was because the people of the free States were thus compelled to 
become " slave hunters" that they were so strenuously opposed to the 
law. 

22 This desire of the Republican party to abohsh slavery from the 
District of Columbia should not be confused with the law of 1850, 
which prohibited only the buying and selling of slaves within the 
District. 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 23 

that you cannot get Mr. Lincoln to come out and say that 
he is now in favor of each one of them. That these propo- 
sitions, one and all, constitute the platform of the Black 
Republican party of this day, I have no doubt; and when 
you were not aware for what purpose I was reading them, 5 
your Black Eepublicans cheered them as good Black Re- 
publican doctrines. My object in reading these resolu- 
tions, was to put the question to Abraham Lincoln this 
day, whether he now stands and will stand by each article 
in that creed, and carry it out. 1 desire to know whether 10 
Mr. Lincoln to-day stands as he did in 1854, in favor of 
the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. I de- 
sire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-da^^ as 
he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave 
states into the Union, even if the people want them, I 15 
want to know whether he stands pledged against the ad- 
mission of a new state into the Union with such a Consti- 
tution as the people of that state ma}' see fit to make. I 
want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. I desire 20 
him to answer whether he stands pledged to the prohibi- 
tion of the slave trade betweeii the different states. I 
desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit 
slavery in all the territories of the United States, .\orth 
as well as South of the INlissouri Compromise line. I de- 25 
sire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisi- 
tion of- any more territory unless slavery is prohibited 
therein. I want his answer to these questions. Your 
affirmative cheers in favor of this Abolition platform are 
not satisfactory. I ask Abraham Lincoln to answer these 39 
questions, in order that, when 1 trot him down to lower 
Egypt,'^ I may put the same questions to him. My prin- 
ciples are the same everywhere. I can proclaim them 
alike in the North, the South, the East, and the West. My 
principles will apply wherever the Constitution prevails 35 
and the American flag waves. T desire to know whether 
Mr. Lincoln's principles will bear transplanting from 
Ottawa to Jonesboro? I put these questions to him to-day 

23 Ijower Egypt was a name colloquially applied to southern Illinois. 



24 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

distinctly, and ask an answer. I have a rig-ht to an an- 
swer, for 1 quote from the platform of the Republican 
party, made by himself and others at the time that partj- 
was formed, and the bargain made by Lincoln to dissolve 
5 and kill the old AMiig party, and transfer its members, 
bound hand and foot, to the Abolition party, under the 
direction of Gidding-s and Fred Douglass. In the remarks 
I have made on this platform, and the position of Mr. Lin- 
coln upon it, I mean nothing personally disrespectful or 

10 unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for nearly 
twenty-five j^ears. There were many points of sympathy 
between us when we first got acquainted. We were both 
comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in 
a strange land. I was a school teacher in the town of 

15 Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the 
town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation 
than I Avas in mine, and hence more fortunate in this 
world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who 
perform with admirable skill everything which they 

20 undertake. 1 made as good a school teacher as I could, 
and when a cabinet maker I made a good bedstead and 
tables, although my old boss said I succeeded better with 
bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; but I 
believe that Lincoln was alwaj^s more successful in busi- 

25 ness than I, for his business enabled him to get into the 
Legislature. I met liim there, however, and had a sym- 
pathy with him, because of the uphill struggle we both 
had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anec- 
dote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or 

30 running a foot-race, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper; 
could ruin more liquor -* than all the boys of the town to- 
gether, and the dignity and impartiality with which he 
presided at a horse-race or fist-fight, excited the admira- 
tion and won the praise of everybody that was present 

24 There is no evidence to show that Mr, Lincoln was ever au intem- 
perate man, thongli, like many men of his time, he was not a total 
abstainer. The fact that he makes no reply to this charge seems 
to indicate that he knew the people of the time did not consider ifc 
^ serious one. 



DOtlGLAs's SPEECH, AUGUST 21, 1858 25 

and participated. I sympatliized with him, because he 
was striig-g-ling- with difficulties, and so was I. ]Mr. Lin- 
coln served with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we 
both retired, and he subsided, or became submerg-ed, and 
he was lost sig"ht of as a public man for some years. In 5 
1846, when Wilmot -^ introduced his celebrated proviso, and 
the Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln 
ag-ain turned up as a member of Congress from the San- 
g"amon district. I was then in the Senate of the United 
States, and was glad to nelcome my old friend and com- 10 
panion. "Whilst in Congress, he distinguished himself by 
his opposition to the IMexican war,-** taking the side of the 
common enemy against his own country; and when he 
returned home he found that the indignation of the people 
followed him everywhere, and he was again submerged 15 
or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his for- 
mer friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to 
make this Abolition or Black Republican platform, in com- 
pany with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, 
for the Republican party to stand upon. Trumbull, too, 20 
was one of our own cotemporaries. He was born and 
raised in old Connecticut, was bred a Federalist, but re- 
moving to Georgia, turned Nullifier,-^ when nullification 
was popular, and as soon as he disposed of his clocks and 
wound up his business, migrated to Illinois, turned poll- 25 
tician and lawyer here, and made his appearance in 1841, 
as a member of the Legislature. He became noted as the 
author of the scheme to repudiate a large portion of the 
state debt of Illinois, which, if successful, would have 
brought infamy and disgrace upon the fair escutcheon of 30 

2^ The Wilmot proviso is sufficiently explained in the Introduction, 
p. 4. 

2« It should be kept in mind that the Mexican War was not favored 
by the people of the North, except by those who sympathized with the 
extension of slavery. 

2^ Those people were called Nullifiers who believed that each State 
had the right to declare inactive and mill those United States laws 
which the individual State did not believe to be constitutional or 
desirable. 



26 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

our glorious State. The odium attached to that measure 
consigned him to oblivion for a time. I helped to do it. 
I walked into a public meeting in the hall of the House 
of Representatives, and replied to his repudiating speeches, 
5 and resolutions were carried over his head denouncing 
repudiation, and asserting the moral and legal obligation 
of Illinois to pay every dollar of the debt she owed and 
every bond that bore her seal. Trumbull's malignity has 
followed me since I thus defeated his infamous scheme. 

10 These two men having formed this comoination to 
abolitionize the old Whig party and the old Democratic 
party, and [to] put themselves into the Senate of the 
United States, in pursuance of their bargain, are now car- 
rying out that arrangement. Matheny states that Trum- 

15 bull broke faith; that the bargain was that Lincoln should 
be the Senator in Shields's place, and Trumbull was to wait 
for mine; and the story goes, that Trumbull cheated Lin- 
coln, having control of four or five abolitionized Democrats 
who were holding over in the Senate; he would not let 

20 them vote for Lincoln, which obliged the rest of the 
Abolitionists to support him in order to secure an Aboli- 
tion Senator. There are a number of authorities for the 
truth of this besides Matheny, and I suppose that even Mr. 
Lincoln will not deny it. 

25 Mr. Lincoln demands that he shall have the place in- 
tended for Trumbull, as Trumbull cheated him and got 
his, and Trumbull is stumping the State traducing me for 
the purpose of securing the position for Lincoln, in order 
to quiet him. It was in consequence of this arrangement 

30 that the Republican Convention was impaneled to in- 
struct for Lincoln and nobody else, and it was on this ac- 
count that they passed resolutions that he was their first, 
their last, and their only choice. Archy Williams was 
nowhere, Browning was nobody, Wentworth -* was not to 



2H Archibald Williams was a United States district judge and a mem- 
ber of the Bloomington State Convention held May 29, 1856, and com- 
posed of ''all opponents of anti-Nebraska legislation." This convention 
was thus made up of all parties and all creeds. It took the name 
of tlie Republican party, accepted its principles, and named delegates 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 27 

he considered; the}' had no man in the Tvepublican party 
Idr the place except Lincoln, for the reason that he de- 
manded that the}^ shonld carry out the arrangement. 

Having- formed this new party for the benefit of de- 
serteis from Whig-g-ery, and deserters from Democracy, 5 
and having" laid down the Abolition platform which I have 
read, Lincoln now takes his stand and proclaims his Aboli- 
tion doclrines. Let me read a part of them. In his 
s|)('('cli at S|)ringfie]d to the convention, wliicli n()min;i1c(l 
him for the Senate, he said: 10 

" In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
been reached and passed. ' A house divided against itself 
cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure 
prrniancntJu half Hlare and half Free. I do not expect the 
I'nion to be dissolved — T do not expect the house to fall — ^5 
hid I do expect it uUl ceaf<e to he dirided. It will become all 
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery 
tcill arrest the finiln r sprrad of if, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction: or its advocates uill push it forward 20 
//// it shall hvconic alike lairfiil in all the sfatrs — old as well 
as new, North as well as South." 

[" Good," " good," and cheers.] 

I am delighted to hear you Black Republicans say 
" good." I have no doubt that doctrine expresses your 25 
sentiments, and I will prove to you now, if you will listen 
to me, th;it it is revolutionary and destructive of the exist- 
ence of this Government, Mr. Lincoln, in the extract from 
which 1 have read, says that this Government cannot en- 
dure permanently in the same condition in which it was 30 
made by its framers — divided into free and slave states. 
He says that it has existed for about seventy years thus 

to the coining National Convention. Orville H. Browning (1811-81) 
was a prominent Illinois politician, -who also attended the Bloomington 
Convention, and had helped to form the Republican party of that 
State at Springtield in 1854. John Wentworth (1815-88) was mayor of 
Chicago in 1857, editor of the Chicago Democrat from 1836 to 1861, and 
represented Illinois in Congress three terms. He -was a Democrat till 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, whereupon he became a Whig 
and then a Eepublican. 



28 SPEECHES OF LIXCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

divided, and yet he tells you that it cannot endure perma- 
nently on the same principles and in the same relative 
condition in v^-hich our fathers made it. Why can it not 
exist divided into free and slave states? Washington, 
Jefferson, Franklin, Madison. Hamilton, Jay, and the great 
men of that day, made this Government divided into free 
states and slave states, and left each state perfectly free 
to do as it pleased on the subject of slavery. ^Thy can it 
not exist on the same principles on which our fathers 

10 made it? They knew when they framed the Constitution 
that in a country as wide and broad as this, with such a 
variety of climate, production, and interest, the people 
necessarily required different laws and institutions in dif- 
ferent localities. They knew that the laws and regula- 

15 tions which would suit the granite hills of New Hamp- 
shire would be unsuited to the rice plantations of South 
Carolina, and they, therefore, provided that each state 
should retain its o\\'n Legislature and its o"wn sovereignty, 
with the full and complete power to do as it pleased within 

20 its own limits, in all that was local and not national. One 
of the reserved rights of the states, was the right to regu- 
late the relations between master and servant, on the 
slavery question. At the time the Constitution was 
framed, there were thirteen states in the Union, twelve of 

25 which were slaveholding states and one a free state. Sup- 
pose this doctrine of uniformity preached by Mr. Lincoln, 
that the states should all be free or all be slave had pre- 
vailed, what would have been the result? Of- course, 
the twelve slaveholding states would have overruled the 

30 one free state, and slavery would have been fastened by a 
Constitutional provision on every inch of the American 
Eepublic, instead of being left as our fathers wisely left 
it. to each state to decide for itself. Here I assert that 
uniformity in the local laws and institutions of the differ- 

3.5 ent states is neither possible or desirable. If uniformity 
had been adopted when the Government was established, 
it must inevitably have been the uniformity of slavery 
everywhere, or else the uniformity of negro citizenship, 
and negro equality everywhere. 



Douglas's speech, ArGusx 21, 1S5S 29 

"We are told by Lincoln that he is utterly opposed to the 
Dred Scott decision, and will not submit to it, for the rea- 
son that he says it deprives the negro of the rights and 
privileges of citizenship. That is the first and main rea- 
son which he assigns for his warfare on the Supreme 5 
Court of the United States and its decision. I ask you, are 
you in favor of conferring upon the negro the rights and 
privileges of citizenship? Do you desire to strike out of 
our State Constitution that clause which keeps slaves and 
free negroes out of the state, and allow the free negroes 10 
to flow in, and cover your prairies with black settlements? 
Do you desire to turn this beautiful state into a free negro 
colony, in order that when Missouri abolishes slavery she 
can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into 
Illinois, to become citizens and voters, on an equality with 15 
yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if you desire 
to allow them to come into the state and settle with the 
white man, if you desire them to vote on an equality with 
yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on 
juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Mr. Lin- 20 
coin and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of 
the citizenship of the negro. For one. I am opposed to 
negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe this 
Government was made on the white basis. I believe it 
was made by white men. for the benefit of white men 2o 
and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining 
citizenship to white men. men of European birth and 
descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes. Indians, 
and other inferior races. 

Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the 30 
little Abolition orators, who go around and lecture in 
the basements of schools and churches, reads from the 
Declaration of Independence, that all men were created 
equal, and then asks, how can you deprive a negro of that 
equality which God and the Declaration of Independence 35 
award to him? He and they maintain that negro 
equality is guaranteed by the laws of God. and that it is 
asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they 
think so. of course thev have a ri^ht to sav so. and so vote. 



30 SPEECHES OP LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that 
the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother; 
but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my 
equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any 
5 kin to me w hatever, Lincoln has evidently learned by 
heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He can repeat it as 
well as Farnsworth,-** and he is worthy of a medal from 
Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abolitionism. 
He holds that the negro was born his equal and yours, and 

10 that he was endowed with equality by the Almighty, and 
that no human law^ can deprive him of these rights which 
were guaranteed to him by the Supreme Ruler of the 
Universe. Now, I do not believe that the Almighty ever 
intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. If 

15 He did. He has been a long time demonstrating the fact. 
For thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the 
earth, and during all that time, in all latitudes and cli- 
mates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he has 
been inferior to the race which he has there met. He be- 

20 longs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an in- 
ferior position. 

I do not hold that because the negro is our inferior 
that therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means 
can such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. 

25 On the contrary, I hold that humanity and Christianity 
both require that the negro shall have and enjoy every 
right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent 
with the safety of the society in which he lives. On 
that point, I presume, there can be no diversity of opinion. 

30 You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and depend- 
ent beings every right, every privilege, every facility and 
immunity consistent with the public good. The question 
then arises, what rights and privileges are consistent with 
the public good? This is a question which each state and 

35 each territory must decide for itself— Illinois has de- 
cided it for herself. We have provided that the negro 
shall not be a slave, and we have also provided that he shall 
29 John F. Farnsworth was a lawyer in Chicago, a member of the 
35th, 36th, and 38th Congresses, and an Abolitionist. 



Douglas's speech, atjgxjst 21, 1858 31 



not be a citizen, but that we shall protect him in his civil 
rights, in his life, his person and his property, only depriv- 
ing" him of all political rights whatsoever, and refusing to 
put him on an equality with the white man. That p)olicy 
of Illinois is satisfactory to the Democratic party and to 5 
me, and if it were to the Republicans, there would then be 
no question upon the subject; but the Re])ublicans say that 
he ought to be made a citizen, and when he becomes a 
citizen he becomes your equal, with all your rights and 
privileges. They assert the Dred Scott decision to be 10 
monstrous because it denies that the negro is or can be a 
citizen under the Constitution. Now, I hold that Illinois 
had a right to abolish and prohibit slavery as she did, 
and I hold that Kentucky has the same right to continue 
and protect slavery that Illinois had to abolish it. I hold 15 
that New York had as much right to abolish slavery as 
A'irginia has to continue it, and that each and every state 
of this Union is a sovereign power, with the right to do as 
it pleases upon this question of slavery, and upon all its 
domestic institutions. 20 

Slavery is not the only question which comes up in 
this controversy. There is a far more important one to 
you, and that is, what shall be done with the free negro? 
We have settled the slavery question as far as we 
are concerned; we have prohibited it in Illinois forever, 25 
and in doing so I think we have done wisely, and 
there i« no man in the state who would be more stren- 
uous in his opposition to the introduction of slavery than 
I would; but when we settled it for ourselves, we ex- 
hausted all our power over that subject. We have done 30 
our whole duty, and can do no more. We must leave each 
and every other state to decide for itself the same ques- 
tion. In relation to the policy to be pursued toward the 
free negroes, we have said that they shall not vote; whilst 
Maine, on the other hand, has said that they shall vote. 35 
Maine is a sovereign state, and has the power to regulate 
the qualifications of voters within her limits. I would 
never consent to confer the right of voting and of citizen- 
ship upon a negro, but still I am not going to quarrel with 



32 SPEECHES OF LIXCOLX AST) DOUGLAS 

Maine for differing from nie in opinion. Let Maine take 
care of her own negroes and fix tlie qualifications of her 
own voters to suit herself, without interfering with Illi- 
nois, and Illinois will not interfere with Maine. So with 
5 the state of New York. She allows the negro to vote pro- 
vided he owns two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of 
property, but not otherwise. While I would not make any 
distinction Avhatever between a negro who held property 
and one who did not; yet if the sovereign state of New 

10 York chooses to make that distinction it is her business 
and not mine, and I will not quarrel with her for it. She 
can do as she pleases on this question if she minds her 
own business, and we will do the same thing. 

Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and 

15 rigidly upon this great j)rinciple of popular sovereignty, 
which guarantees to each state and territory the right to 
do as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead of 
asking Congress to interfere, we will continue at peace one 
with another. Why should Illinois be at war with Mis- 

20 souri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, 
merely because their institutions differ? Our fathers in- 
tended that our institutions should differ. The}^ knew that 
the North and the South, having different climates, pro- 
ductions and interests, required different institutions. 

25 This doctrine "of Mr. Lincoln, of uniformity among the in- 
stitutions of the different states, is a new doctrine, never 
dreamed of by Washington, jNIadison, or the framers of 
this Government. ]\fr. Lincoln and the Republican party 
set themselves up as wiser than these men who made this 

30 Government, which has flourished for seventy years under 
the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right 
of each state to do as it pleased. Under that principle, 
we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to 
a nation of about thirty millions of people; we have 

85 crossed the Allegheny Mountains and filled up the whole 
Northwest, turning the prairie into a garden, and 
building up churches and schools, thus spreading 
civilization and Christianity where before there was 
nothing- but savag-e barbarism. Under that principle 



Lincoln's srEEcii, august 21, 1858 33 

we have become, from a feeble nation, the most power- 
ful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to 
that principle, we can go forward increasing- in territory, 
in power, in strength, and in giory until the Republic 
of America shall be the North Star that shall guide the 5 
friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. And 
why can we not adhere to the great principle of self- 
government, upon which our institutions were originally 
based? I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. 
Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it sue- 10 
ceeds. They are trying to array all the Northern states 
in one body against the South, to excite a sectional war 
between the free states and the slave states, in order that 
the one or the other inay be driven to the wall. 

I am told that my time is out. Mr. Lincoln will now ad- 15 
dress you for an hour and a half, and I will then occupy 
an half-hour in replying to him. 



MR. LINCOLN'S REPLY ' 

My Fellow-citizens: When a man hears himself some- 
what misrepresented, it provokes him — at least, I find it 
so with myself; but when misrepresentation becomes very 20 
gross and palpable, it is more apt to amuse him. The first 
thing I see fit to notice, is the fact that Judge Douglas 
alleges, after running through the history of the old 
Democratic and the old Whig parties, that Judge Trumbull 
and myself made an arrangement in 1854, by which I was 25 
to have the place of General Shields in the United States 
Senate, and Judge Trumbull was to have the place of 
Judge Douglas. Now, all I have to say upon that subject 
is, that I think no man — not even Judge Douglas — can 
prove it, hecaiise it is not true. T have no doubt he is " con- 30 
scientious " in saying it. As to those resolutions that he 
took such a length of time to read, as being the platform 
of the Republican party in 1854, I say I never had any- 
thing to do with them, and I think Trumbull never had. 
Judge Douglas cannot show that either of us ever did 35 



34 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

have anything to do with them. I believe this is true 
about those resolutions: There was a call for a convention 
to form a Repiiblican party at Springfield, and I think 
that my friend, Mr. Lovejo.y, who is here upon this stand, 
5 had a hand in it. I think this is true, and I think if he 
will remember accurately, he will be able to recollect that 
he tried to get me into it, and I would not go in. I believe 
it is also true that I went away from Springfield when the 
convention was in session, to attend court in Tazewell 

10 county. It is true they did place my name, though with- 
out authority, upon the committee, and afterward wrote 
me to attend the meeting of the committee, but I refused 
to do so, and I never had anything to do with that organi- 
zation. This is the plain truth about all that matter of 

15 the resolutions. 

Now, about this story that Judge Douglas tells of Trum- 
bull bargaining to sell out the old Democratic party, and 
Lincoln agreeing to sell out the old Whig party, I have 
the means of knowing about that; Judge Douglas cannot 

20 have; and I know there is no substance to it whatever. 
Yet I have no doubt he is "■conscientious " about it. I know 
that after Mr. Lovejoy got into the Legislature that win- 
ter, he complained of me that I had told all the old Whigs 
of his district that the old Whig party was good enough 

25 for them, and some of them voted against him because I 
told them so. Now, I have no means of totally disproving 
such charges as this which the Judge makes. A man 
cannot prove a negative, but he has a right to claim that 
when a man makes an afiirmative charge, he must offer 

3Q some proof to show the truth of what he says. I certainly 
cannot introduce testimony to show the negative about 
things, but I have a right to claim that if a man says he 
knoivs a thing, then he must show hoiv he knows it. I 
always have a right to claim this, and it is not satisfactory 

35 to me that he may be " conscientions " on the subject. 

Now, gentlemen, I hate to waste my time an such things, 
but in regard to that general Abolition tilt that Judge 
Douglas makes, when he says that I was engaged at that 
time in selling out and abolitionizing the old Whig party 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 35 

— I hope you will permit me to read a part of a printed 
speech that I made then at Peoria, which will show alto- 
gether a different view of the position I took in that con- 
test of 1854. 

Voice — "' Put on j^our specs." '^ 

Mr, Lincoln — Yes, sir, 1 am oblig-ed to do so. I am no 
long-er a young- man. 

" This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.* The 
foregoing history may not be precisely accurate in every 
particular; but I am sure it is suflficiently so for all the 10 
uses I shall attempt to make of it, and in it we have be- 
fore us the chief materials enabling us to correctly judge 
whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is right or 
\A rong. 

" I think, and shall try to show, that it is wrong; wrong 15 
in its direct effect, letting slavery into Kansas and Ne- 
braska — and wrong in its prospective principle, allowing 
it to spread to every other part of the wide world, where 
men can be found inclined to take it. 

" This (Jeclarcd indifference, but, as I must think, covert 20 
real zeal for the spread of slavery, 1 cannot but hate. I 
hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. 
I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its 
just influence in the world — enables the enemies of free 
institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites — 25 
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, 
and especially because it forces so many really good men 
amongst ourselves into an open war with the very funda- 
mental principles of civil liberty — criticising the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and insisting that there is no right 30 
principle of action but self-iiitcrcst. 

" Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no preju- 
dice against the Southern people. They are just what we 
would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist 
among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now 35 

* This extract from Mr. Lincoln's Peoria speech of 1854 was read by 
him in tlie Ottawa debate, but was not reported fully or accurately in 
either the Times or Press and Tribune. It is inserted now as necessary 
to a complete report of the debate. 



36 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

exist among- us, we should not instantly give it up. This 
I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there 
are individuals on both sides, who would not hold slaves 
under any circumstances; and others who would gladly 
5 introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We 
know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go 
North, and become tip-top Abolitionists; while some 
Northern ones go South, and become most cruel slave- 
masters. 

10 " When Southern people tell us they are no more re- 
sponsible for the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge 
the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and 
that it is very difficult to get rid of it, in any satisfactory 
way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely 

15 will not blame them for not doing what I should not know 
how to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I 
should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. 
My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send 
them to Liberia — to their own native land. But a mo- 

20 ment's reflection would convince me, that whatever of 
high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the 
the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. If they 
were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the 
next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and sur- 

25 plus money enough in the world to carry them there in 
many times ten days. What then? Free them all, and 
keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain 
that this betters their condition? I think I would not 
hold one in slavery at any rate; jet the point is not clear 

30 enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? 
Free them, and make them politically and socially our 
equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if 
mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of 
white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with 

35 justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, 
indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether 
well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We can- 
not, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that 
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 37 

for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge 
our brethren of the South. 

'* When they remind us of their constitutional rig-hts, I 
acknowledge them, not grudgingl3^ but fully and fairly; 
and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming 5 
of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be 
more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our 
ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one. 

"But all this, to my judgment, furnishes no more ex- 
cuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free terri- 10 
tory, than it would for reviving the African slave-trade by 
law. The law which forbids the bringing of slaves from 
Africa, and that which has so long forbid the taking of 
them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished on any 
moral principle; and the repeal of the former could find 15 
quite as plausible excuses as that of the latter." 

I have reason to know that Judge Douglas knows that I 
said this. I think he has the answer here to one of the 
questions he put to me. I do not mean to allow him to 
catechise me unless he pays back for it in kind. I will not 20 
answer questions one after another, unless he recij^ro- 
cates; but as he has made this inquiry, and I have an- 
swered it before, he has got it without my getting any- 
thing in return. He has got my answer on the Fugitive 
Slave law. 25 

Now, gentlemen, [ don't want to read at any greater 
length, but this is the true complexion of all I have ever 
said in regard to the institution of slaverj'^ and the black 
race. This is the whole of it, and anything that argues 
me into his idea of perfect social and political equality 30 
with the negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrange- 
ment of words, by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut 
to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this 
subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the states 35 
where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, 
and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to 
introduce political and social equality between the white 
and the black races. There is a physical difference be- 



38 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

tween the two, Avhich, in my judgment, will probably for- 
ever forbid their living" tog-ether upon the footing- of per- 
fect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that 
there must be a difference, I, as well as Judg-e Douglas, 
5 am in favor of the race to which I belong having the 
superior position. I have never said anything to the con- 
trary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is 
no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all 
the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Inde- 

10 pendence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the 
white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my 
equal in many respects — certainly not in color, perhaps not 
in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to 

15 eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which 
his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judtje 
Douglas, and the equal of every living wan. 

Now I pass on to consider one or two more of these 
little follies. The Judge is woefully at fault about his 

20 earlj^ friend Lincoln being a " grocery-keeper." I don't 
know as it would be a great sin, if I had been ; but he is 
mistaken. Lincoln never kept a grocery ^^ anywhere in the 
world. It is true that Lincoln did work the latter part of 
one winter in a little still-house, up at the head of a hol- 

25 low. And so I think my friend, the Judge, is equally at 
fault when he charges me at the time when I was in Con- 
gress of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting in 
the Mexican w^ar. The Judge did not make his charge 
very distinctly, but I can tell you what he can prove, by 

30 referring to the record. You remember I w as an old 
Whig, and whenever the Democratic party tried to get me 
to vote that the war had been righteously begun by the 
President, I would not do it. But whenever they asked 
for any money, or land-warrants, or anything to pay the 

35 soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the same vote 
that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you please as 

30 In 1832 Lincoln bought a half-interest in a grocery store, but 
the business ^as not a success, and lie had finally to pay all of the 
debts. 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 39 

to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth; and 
the Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But 
when he, by a general charge, convej's the idea that I 
withheld supplies from the soldiers who were fighting in 
the Mexican war, or did anything else to hinder the sol- 5 
diers, he is, to say the least, grossly and altogether mis- 
taken, as a consultation of the records will prove to him. 

As I have not used up so much of my time as I had sup- 
posed, I will dwell a little longer upon one or two of these 
minor topics upon which the Judge has spoken. He has IQ 
read from my speech in Springfield, in which I say that 
" a house divided against itself cannot stand." Does the 
Judge say it can stand? I don't know whether he does or 
not. The Judge does not seem to be attending to me just 
now, but I would like to know if it is his opinion that a 15 
house divided against itself can stand. If he does think so, 
then there is a question of veracity, not between him and 
me, but between the Judge and an authority of a some- 
what higher character. 

Now, my friends, I ask your attention to this matter for 20 
the purpose of saying something' seriously. I know that 
the Judge may readily enough agree with me that the 
maxim which was put forth by the Saviour, is true, but 
he may allege that I misapply it; and the Judge has a 
right to urge that, in my application, I do misapply it, 25 
and then I have a right to show that I do not misapply it. 
AVhen he undertakes to say that because I think this 
nation, so far as the question of slavery is concerned, will 
all become one thing or all the other, I am in favor of 
bringing about a dead uniformity in the various states, 30 
in all their institutions, he argues erroneously. The great 
variety of the local institutions in the states, springing 
from differences in the soil, differences in the face of the 
country, and in the climate, are bonds of Union. They do 
not make " a house divided against itself," but they make 35 
a house united. If they produce in one section of the 
country what is called for by the wants of another section, 
and this other section can supph^ the wants of the first, 
they are not matters of discord but bonds of union, true 



40 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

bonds of union. But can this question of slavery be con- 
sidered as among- these varieties in the institutions of the 
country? I leave it to you to say whether, in the history 
of our Government, this institution of slavery has not 
5 always failed to be a bond of union, and, on the contrary, 
been an apple of discord,^^ and an element of division in 
the house. I ask you to consider whether, so long as the 
moral constitution of men's minds shall continue to be the 
same, after this generation and assemblage shall sink into 

10 the grave, and another race shall arise, with the same 
moral and intellectual development we have — whether, if 
that institution is standing in the same irritating position 
in which it now is, it will not continue an element of divi- 
sion? If so, then I have a right to saj^ that, in regard to 

15 this question, the Union is a house divided against itself; 
and when the Judge reminds me that I have often said to 
him that the institution of slavery has existed for eighty 
years in some states, and j'et it does not exist in some 
others, I agree to the fact, and I account for it by looking 

20 at the position in which our fathers originally placed it — 
restricting it from the new territories where it had not 
gone, and legislating to cut off its source by the abroga- 
tion of the slave-trade, thus putting the seal of legislation 
against its spread. The public mind did rest in the belief 

25 that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But 
lately, I think — and in this I charge nothing on the 
Judge's motives — lately, I think, that he, and those acting 
with him, have placed that institution on a new basis, 
which looks to the perpetuity and nationalization of slavery. 

30 And while it is placed upon this new basis, I say, and I 
have said, that I believe we shall not have peace upon the 
question until the opponents of slaverj^ arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; 

3' Allusion is here made to the golden apple said to have been 
inscribed '• To the fairest," and thrown among the goddesses by Dis- 
cordia. Paris was asked to make the award, and gave it to Aphrodite; 
by this means he brought down upon himself, and later upon his native 
city lUum, the wrath of the two jealous goddesses Hera and Athena. 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 41 

or, on the other hand, that its advocates will push it for- 
ward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states, 
old as well as new, North as well as South. Now, I be- 
lieve if we could arrest the spread, and place it where 
Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison placed it, it would 5 
he in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public 
mind would, as for eig-hty years past, believe that it was 
in the course of ultimate extinction. The crisis would be 
past and the institution might be let alone for a hundred 
years, if it should live so long, in the states where it 10 
exists, yet it would bo going out of existence in the way 
best for both the black and the white races. 
A Voice — "Then do you repudiate Popular Sovereignty?" 
Mr, Lincoln— Well, then, let us talk about Popular Sov- 
ereignty! What is Popular Sovereignty? Is it the right 15 
of the people to have slavery or not have it, as they see 
fit, in the territories? I will state — and I have au able 
man to watch me — my understanding is that Popular 
Sovereignty, as now applied to the question of slavery, 
does allow the people of a territory to have slavery if 20 
they want to, but does not allow them not to have it if they 
do not want it. I do not mean that if this vast concourse 
of people were in a territory of the United States, any 
one of them w^ould be obliged to have a slave if he did not 
want one; but I do say that, as I understand the Dred 25 
Scott decision, if any one man wants slaves, all the rest 
have no way of keeping that one man from holding them. 
When I made my speech at Springfield, of which the 
Judge complains, and from w^hich he quotes, I really was 
not thinking of the things w^hich he ascribes to me at all. 30 
I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything 
to bring about a war between the free and slave states. 
I had no thought in the world that I was doing anything 
to bring about a political and social equalitj^ of the black 
and white races. It never occurred to me that I was doing 35 
anything or favoring anything to reduce to a dead uni- 
formity all the local institutions of the various states. 
But I must saj', in all fairness to him, if he thinks I am 
doing something w^hich leads to these bad results, it is 



42 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

none the better that I did not mean it. It is just as fatal 
to the country, if I have any influence in producing- it, 
whether I intend it or not. But can it be true, that plac- 
ing- this institution upon the original basis — the basis 
5 upon which our fathers placed it — can have any tendency 
to set the Northern and the Southern states at war with 
one another, or that it can have any tendency to make 
the people of Vermont raise sug-ar-cane. because they raise 
it in Louisiana, or that it can compel the people of Illinois 

10 to cut pine log-s on the Grand Prairie, where thej^ will not 
grow, because they cut pine logs in Maine, where they do 
grow? Tlie Judge says this is a new principle started in 
regard to this question. Does the Judge claim that he is 
working on the plan of the founders of our Government? 

15 I think he says in some of his speeches — indeed, I have one 
here now — that he saw evidence of a policy to allow 
slavery to be south of a certain line, while north of it it 
should be excluded, and he saw an indisposition on the 
part of the country to stand upon that policy, and there- 

20 fore he set about studying the subject upon original prin- 
ciples, and upon original principles he got up the Nebraska 
bill! I am fighting it upon these "original principles," 
fighting it in the Jeffersonian, Washingtonian, and Madi- 
sonian fashion. 

25 Now, my friends, I wish you to attend for a little while 
to one or two other things in that Springfield speech. My 
main object was to show, so far as mj^ humble ability was 
capable of showing- to the people of this country, what I 
believed was the truth — that there was a tendency, if not a 

30 conspiracy among those who have engineered this slavery 
question for the last four or five years, to make slavery 
perpetual and universal in this nation. Having made that 
speech principally for that object, after arranging the evi- 
dences that I thought tended to prove my proposition, I 

35 concluded with this bit of comment: 

" We cannot absolutely know that these exact adapta- 
tions are the result of preconcert, but when we see a lot 
of framed timbers, different portions of which we know 
have been gotten out at different times and places, and by 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1«58 43 

different workmen— Stephen, Franklin, Koger, and James, 
for instance — and when we see these timbers joined to- 
gether, and see thej' exactly make the frame of a house or 
a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and all 
the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly 5 
adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too 
many or too few — not omitting even the scaffolding — or if 
a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame 
exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring such piece in — in 
such a case we feel it impossible not to believe that Ste- 10 
phen and Franklin, and Roger and James, all understeod 
one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a 
common plan or draft drawn before the first blow was 
struck." 

When my friend. Judge Douglas, came to Chicago, on 15 
the 9tli of July, this speech having been delivered on the 
IGth [read 17th] of June, he made an harangue there, in 
which he took hold of this speech of mine, showing that he 
had carefully read it; and wdiile he ])aid no attention to 
this matter at all, but complimented me as being a "kind, 20 
amiable, and intelligent gentleman," notwithstanding I 
had said this, he goes on and eliminates,^- or draws out, 
from my speech this tendency of mine to set the States at 
war with one another, to make all the institutions uni- 
form, and set the niggers and white people to marrying to- 25 
gether. Then, as the Judge had complimented me with 
these pleasant titles (I must confess to my weakness), I 
was a little " taken," for it came from a great man, I was 
not very much accustomed to flattery,, and it came the 
sweeter to me. I was rather like the Hoosier, with the 30 
gingerbread, when he said he reckoned he loved it better 
than any other man, and got less of it. As the Judge had 
so flattered me, I could not make up my mind that he 
meant to deal unfairly with me so 1 went to work to show 
him that he misunderstood the whole scope of my speech, 35 
and that I really never intended to set the people at war 

32 Eliminate is here used as though it could etymologically mean 
to draw an inference from something. " Recent and not well author- 
ized." — Webster's International Dictionary. 



44 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

with one another. As an illustration, the next time I met 
him, which was at Springfield, I used this expression, that 
I claimed no right under the Constitution, nor had I any 
inclination, to enter into the sla\'e states and interfere 
5 with the institutions of slavery. He says upon that: Lin- 
coln will not enter into the slave states, but will go to the 
banks of the Ohio, on this side, and shoot over! He runs 
on, step by step, in the horse-chestnut style of argument, 
until in the Springfield speech he says, " Unless he shall 

10 be successful in firing his batteries until he shall have 
extinguished slavery in all the states, the Union shall be 
dissolved." Now I don't think that was exactly the way 
to treat " a kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman." I know 
if I had asked the Judge to show^ when or where it was 

15 I had said that if I didn't succeed in firing into the slave 
states until slavery should be extinguished, the Union 
should be dissolved, he could not have shown it. I under- 
stand what he would do. He would say, " I don't mean to 
quote from you, but this was the ?esuU of what you say." 

20 But I have the right to ask, and I do ask now, Did you not 
put it in such a form that an ordinary reader or listener 
would take it as an expression from me? 

In a speech at Springfield, on the night of the 17th, I 
thought I might as well attend to my ow n business a little, 

25 and I recalled his attention as well as I could to this 
charge of conspiracy to nationalize slavery. I called his 
attention to the fact that he had acknowledged, in my 
hearing twice, that he had carefully read the speech, and, 
in the language of the lawj^ers, as he had twice read the 

30 speech, and still had put in no plea or answer, I took a de- 
fault on him.^^ I insisted that I had a right then to renew 
that charge of conspiracy. Ten days afterward I met the 
Judge at Clinton — that is to say, I was on the ground, but 
not in the discussion — and heard him make a speech. 

35 Then he comes in w ith his plea to this charge, for the first 
time, and his plea when put in, as well as I can. recollect 

33 "I took a default on him" means I claimed judgment against 
him because he did not reply to my charge; a legal phrase expressing 
a legal privilege. 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 45 

it, amounted to this: that he never had any talk with 
Judge Taney or the President of the United States with 
regard to the Dred Scott decision before it was made. I 
(Lincoln) ought to know that the man who makes a charge 
without knowing it to be true, falsifies as much as he who 5 
knowingly tells a falsehood; and lastly, that he would joro- 
nounce the whole thing a falsehood; but he would make 
no personal application of the charge of falsehood, not 
because of any regard for the " kind, amiable intelligent 
gentleman," but because of his own personal self-respect! 10 
I have understood since then (but [turning to Judge Doug- 
las] will not hold the Judge to it if he is not willing) that 
he has broken through the " self-respect," and has got to 
saying the thing out. The Judge nods to me that it is so. 
It is fortunate for me that I can keep as good-humored as 15 
I do, when the Judge acknowledges that he has been try- 
ing to make a question of veracity with me. I know the 
Judge is a great man, while I am only a small man, but / 
feeJ that I have got him. 1 demur ^^ to that plea. I waive all 
objections that it was not filed till after default was taken, 30 
and demur to if upon the merits. What if Judge Douglas 
never did talk with Chief Justice Taney and the President, 
before the Dred Scott decision was made, does it follow 
that he could not have had as perfect an understanding 
without talking as with it? I am not disposed to stand 25 
upon my legal advantage. 1 am disposed to take his de- 
nial as being like an answer in chancer3%^^ that he neither 
had any knowledge, information, or belief in the existence 
of such a conspiracy. I am disposed to take his answer as 
being as broad as though he had put it in these words. 30 
And now, I ask, even if he had done so, have not I a right 

3* "I demur to that plea " means I interpose a demurrer to that plea. 
"A stop or pause by a party to an action, for the judgment of the 
court ou the question, whether, assuming the truth of the matter 
alleged by the opposite party, it is sufficient in law to sustain the 
action or defense, and hence whether the party resting is bound to 
answer or proceed further."— Wefts^er's Infernational Dictionary. 

3^ An answer in chancery is equal to an answer in equity as opposed 
to one in law, which may not be equitable. 



46 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

to prove it on him, and to offer the evidence of more than 
two witnesses, b}^ whom to prove it; and if the evidence 
proves the existence of the conspiracy, does his broad an- 
swer den3'ing- all knowledge, information, or belief, dis- 
5 turb the fact? It can only show that he was used by 
conspirators, and was not a leader of them. 

Now, in regard to his reminding me of the moral rule 
that persons who tell what they do not kno\y to be true, 
falsify as much as those who knowingly tell falsehoods. 

10 I remember the rule, and it must be borne in mind that in 
what I have read to you, 1 do not say that I know such a 
conspiracy to exist. To that I reply, / believe it. If the 
Judge says that I do not believe it, then he says what he 
does not know, and falls within his own rule, that he who 

15 asserts a thing which he does not know to be true, falsi- 
fies as much as he who knowingly tells a falsehood. I 
want to call your attention to a little discussion on that 
branch of the case, and the evidence which brought my 
mind to the conclusion which I expressed as my belief. If, 

20 in arraying that evidence, I had stated anything which 
was false or erroneous. It needed but that Judge Douglas 
should point it out, and I would have taken it back with 
all the kindness in the world. I do not deal in that way. 
If I have brought forward anything not a fact, if he will 

25 point it out. it will not even ruffle me to take it back. But 
if he will not point out anything erroneous in the evidence, 
is it not rather for him to show, by a comparison of the 
evidence, that I have reasoned falsely, than to call the 
•'kind, amiable, intelligent gentleman" a liar? If I have 

30 reasoned to a false conclusion, it is the vocation of an able 
debater to show by argument that I have wandered to an 
erroneous conclusion. I want to ask your attention to a 
portion of the Nebraska bill, which Judge Douglas has 
quoted: " It being the true intent and meaning of this act, 

35 not to legislate slavery into any territorj^ or state, nor to 
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic institu- 
tions in their own way, subject only to the Constitution 
of the United States." Thereupon Judge Douglas and 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 47 

others began to argue in favor of " Popular Sovereignty " 
— the right of the people to have slaves if they wanted 
them, and to exclude slavery if they did not want them. 
" But," said, in substance, a Senator from Ohio (Mr. Chase, 
I believe), " we more than suspect that you do not mean to 5 
allow the people to exclude slavery if they wish to, and if 
you do mean it, accept an amendment which I propose 
expressly authorizing the people to exclude slavery." I 
believe I have the amendment here before me, which was 
offered, and under which the people of the territory, 10 
through their proper representatives, might, if they saw 
fit, prohibit the existence of slavery therein. And now I 
state it as a fact, to be taken back if there is any mistake 
about it, that Judge Douglas and those acting with him 
voted that amendment doirn. I now think that those men 15 
who voted it down, had a real reason for doing so. They 
know what that reason was. It looks to us, since we have 
seen the Dred Scott decision pronounced, holding that, 
" under the Constitution " the people cannot exclude 
slavery — I say it looks to outsiders, poor, simple, " amiable, 20 
intelligent gentlemen," as though the niche was left as a 
place to put that Dred Scott decision in — a niche which 
would have been spoiled by adopting the amendment. 
And now, I say again, if this was not the reason, it will 
avail the Judge much more to calmly and good-humoredly 25 
point out ^ to these people what that other reason was for 
voting the amendment down, than, swelling himself up, 
to vociferate that he may be provoked to call somebody a 
liar. 

Again: there is in that same quotation from the Ne- 39 
braska bill this clause — " It being the true intent and 
meaning of this bill not to legislate slavery into any ter- 
ritory or state.'" I have always been puzzled to know what 
business the word " state " had in that connection. Judge 
Douglas knows. lie put it there. He knows what he put it 35 
there for. We outsiders cannot say what he put it there 
for. The law they were passing was not about states, and 
was not making provisions for states. What was it placed 
there for? After seeing the Dred Scott decision, which 



48 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

holds that the people cannot exclude slavery from a terri- 
tory, if another Dred Scott decision shall come, holding 
that they cannot exclude it from a fitate, we shall discover 
that when the word was orig-inally put there, it was in 
5 view of something" which was to come in due time, we shall 
see that it was the other half of something. I now say 
again, if there is any different reason for putting it there, 
Judge Douglas, in a good-humored way, without calling 
anybody a liar, can tell what the reason teas. 

10 ^Vhen the Judge spoke at Clinton, he came very near 
making a charge of falsehood against me. He used, as I 
found it printed in a newspaper, which, I remember, was 
very nearly like the real speech, the following lan- 
guage: 
" I did not answer the charge [of conspiracy] before, 

15 for the reason that I did not suppose there was a man in 

America with a heart so corrupt as to believe such a 

charge could be true. I have too much respect for Mr. 

Lincoln to suppose he is serious in making the charge." 

1 confess this is rather a curious view, that out of re- 

20 spect for me he should consider I was making what I 
deemed rather a grave charge in fun. I confess it strikes 
me rather strangely. But I let it pass. As the Judge did 
not for a moment believe that there was a man in America 
whose heart was so " corrupt " as to make such a charge, 

25 and as he places me among the " men in America " who 
have hearts base enough to make such a charge, I hope he 
will excuse me if I hunt out another charge very like this; 
and if. it should turn out that in hunting I should find that 
other, and it should turn out to be Judge Douglas himself 

30 who made it, I hope he will reconsider this question of the 
deep corruption of heart he has thought fit to ascribe to 
me. In Judge Douglas's speech of March 22, 1858, which 
I hold in my hand, he says: 

" In this connection there is another topic to which I 

85 desire to allude. I seldom refer to the course of news- 
papers, or notice the articles which they publish in regard 
to myself; but the course of the Washington Union has 
been so extraordinary, for the last two or three months, 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 49 

that I think it well enoug-h to make some allusion to it. 
It has read me out of the Democratic party every other 
day, at least for two or three months, and keeps reading- 
me out, and, as if it nad not succeeded, still continues to 
read me out, using" such terms as " traitor," " renegade," 5 
" deserter," and other kind and polite epithets of that 
nature. Sir, I have no vindication to make of my Democ- 
racy against the Washington Union, or any other news- 
papers. 1 am willing to allow my history and action for 
the last twenty years to speak for themselves as to my 10 
political principles, and my fidelity to political obligations. 
The Washington Union has a personal grievance. When 
its editor was nominated for public printer I declined to 
vote for him, and stated that at some time T might give my 
reasons for doing so. Since 1 declined to give that vote, 15 
this scurrilous abuse, these vindictive and constant attacks 
have been rej>eated almost daily on me. Will my friend 
from Michigan read the article to which I allude? " 

This is a part of the speech. You must excuse me 
from reading the entire article of the Washington Union, 20 
as Mr. Stuart read it for Mr. Douglas. The Judge goes on 
and sums up, as I think, correctly: 

" Mr. President, you here find several distinct proposi- 
tions advanced boldlj^ by the Washington Union editorially, 
and apparently antlioritatirelij, and any man who questions 25 
any of them is denounced as an xVbolitionist, a Freesoiler, 
a fanatic. The propositions are, first, that the primary 
object of all government at its original institution is the 
protection of person and property; secondl3% that the Con- 
stitution of the United States declares that the citizens of 30 
each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and im- 
munities of citizens in the several states; and that, there- 
fore, thirdly, all state laws, whether organic or otherwise, 
which prohibit the citizens of one state from settling in 
another with their slave propert3^ and especially declar- 35 
ing it forfeited, are direct violations of the original inten- 
,tion of the Government and Constitution of the United 
States; and, fourthly, that the emancipation of the slaves 
of the Northern states was a gross outrage on the rights of 



50 SPEECHES OF LIXCOLX AND DOUGLAS 

property, inasmuch as it was iiiYoluntarily done on the 
part of the owner, 

" Remember that this article was published in the Union 
on the 17th of November, and on the 18th appeared the 
5 first article giving" the adhesion of the Union to the Le- 
compton Constitution. It was in these words: 

" ' Kansas and her Constitution. — The vexed question 
is settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of dan- 
ger is passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affairs is over 
10 and gone ' — 

" And a column nearly of the same sort. Then, when 
you come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you 
find the same doctrine incorporated in it which was put 
forth editorially in the Union. What is it? 
15 " ' Article 7, Scclion 1. The right of i^roperty is before 
and higher than am- Constitutional sanction; and the right 
of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the 
same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any 
property whatever.' 
20 " Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitu- 
tion may be amended after 1864 by a two-thirds vote. 

" ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of 
property in the ownership of slaves.' 

*' It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton 
25 Constitution, that they are identical in spirit with the 
authoritatire article in the Washington Union of the day 
previous to its indorsement of this Constitution." 

I pass over some portions of the speech, and I hope that 
anyone who feels interested in this* matter, will read the 
30 entire section of the speech, and see whether I do the 
Judge injustice. He proceeds: 

"When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of 
November, followed by the glorification of the Lecompton 
Constitution on the 18th of November, and this clause in 
35 the Constitution asserting the doctrine that a state has no 
right to prohibit slavery within its limits, I saw that there 
was a fatal blow being struck at the sovereignty of the 
" states of this L'nion." 

I stop the quotation there, again requesting that it may 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 51 

all be read. I have read all of the portion I desire to com- 
ment iq)on. What is this charg-e that the Judge thinks !• 
must have a very corrupt heart to make? It was a pur- 
pose on the part of certain high functionaries to make it 
impossible for the people of one state to prohibit the 5 
people of any other state from entering it with their 
" property," so called, and making it a slave state. In 
other Avords, it was a charge implying a design to make 
the institution of slavery national. And now I ask your 
attention to what Judge Douglas has himself done here. JQ 
I know he made that j)art of the speech as a reason why 
he had refused to vote for a certain man for public printer, 
but when we get at it, the charge itself is the very one I 
made against him, that he thinks I am so corrupt for 
uttering. Now, whom does he make that charge against? 15 
Does he make it against that newspaper editor merely? 
No; he says it is identical in spirit with the Lecompton 
Constitution, and so the framers of that Constitution are 
brought in with the editor of the newsj^aper in that " fatal 
blow being" strufk." lie did not call it a " conspiracy." 20 
In his language it is a " fatal blow being struck." And if 
the words carry the meaning better when changed from a 
" conspiracy " into a " fatal blow being struck," I will 
change my expression and call it a "»fatal blow being 
struck." We see the charge made not merely against the 25 
editor of the U it ion, but all the framers of the Lecompton 
Constitution; and not only so, but the article was an 
aiithoritalire article. B\^ whose authority? Is there any 
question but he means it was by the authority of the 
President and his Cabinet — the Administration? 30 

Is there any sort of question but he means to make that 
charge? Then there are the editors of the Union, the 
framers of the Lecompton Constitution, the President of 
the United States and his Cabinet, and all the supporters 
of the Lecompton Constitution, in Congress and out of 35 
Congress who are all involved in this " fatal blow being 
struck." I commend to Judge Douglas's consideration the 
question of how corrupt a man's heart must be to make such 
a charge! 



52 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

Now, my friends, I have but one branch of the subject, 
in the little time I have left, to which to call yonr atten- 
tion, and as I shall come to a close at the end of that 
branch, it is probable that I shall not occupy quite all the 

5 time allotted to me. Although on these questions I would 
like to talk twice as long as I have, I could not enter upon 
another head and discuss it properly without running over 
my time. I ask the attention of the people here assembled 
and elsewhere, to the course that Judge Douglas is pursu- 

10 ing every day as bearing upon this question of making 
slavery national. Not going back to the records, but tak- 
ing the speeches he makes, the speeches he made yester- 
day and day before, and makes constantly all over the 
country— I ask your attention to them. In the first place, 

15 what is necessary to make the institution national? Not 
war. There is no danger that the people of Kentucky will 
shoulder their muskets, and. with a young nigger stuck 
on every bayonet, march into Illinois and force them upon 
us. There is no danger of our g'oing over there and mak- 

20 ing war upon them. Then what is necessary for the 
nationalization of slavery? It is simply the next Dred 
Scott decision. It is merely for the Supreme Court to de- 
cide that no state under the Constitution can exclude it, 
just as they have already decided that under the Constitu- 

25 tion neither Congress nor the territorial Legislature, can 
do it. When that is decided and acquiesced in, the whole 
thing is done. This being true, and this being the way, 
as I think, that slavery is to be made national, let us con- 
sider what Judge Douglas is doing every day to that end. 

30 In the first place, let us see what influence he is exerting 
on public sentiment. In this and like communities, pub- 
lic sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, noth- 
ing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Conse- 
quently he who molds public sentiment, goes deeper than 

35 he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He 
makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be 
executed. This must be borne in mind, as also the addi- 
tional fact that Judge Douglas is a man of vast influence, 
so great that it is enough for many men to profess to be- 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 53 

lieve anything', when they once find out that Judge Doug-- 
his professes to believe it. Consider also the attitude he 
occupies at the head of a larg-e party — a party which he 
claims has a majority of all the voters in the country. 
This man sticks to a decision which forbids the people of 5 
a territory from excluding- slaver}-, and he does so not be- 
cause he sa^'s it is right in itself — he does not give any 
opinion on that — but because it has been decided by the 
court, and l)eing decided by the court, he is, and you are 
bounti to take it in your political action as law — not that 10 
he judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the 
court is to him a " Thus saith the Lord.'" He places it on 
that ground alone, and you will bear in mind that, thus 
committing himself unreservedly to this decision, commits 
him to the ne.vt one just as firmly as to this. He did not 15 
commit himself on account of the merit or demerit of the 
decision, but it is a " Thus saith the tjord.'"' The next deci- 
sion, as much as this, will be a " Tims saith the Lord^ 
There is nothing that can divert or turn him away from 
this decision. It is nothing that I point out to him that his 20 
great prototype. General Jackson, did not believe in the 
binding force of decisions. It is nothing to him that Jeffer- 
son did not so believe. I have said that I have often heard 
him approve of Jackson's course in disregarding the deci- 
sion of the Supreme Court pronouncing a National Bank 25 
constitutional. He says, I did not hear him say so. He 
denies the accuracy of my recollection. I say he ought to 
know betler than I, but I will make no question about this 
thing, though it still seems to me that 1 heard him say it 
twenty times. I will tell him though, that he now claims 80 
to stand on the Cincinnati platform,^" which affirms that 
Cong'ress cannot charter a National Bank, in the teeth of 
that old standing decision that Congress can charter a 

36 The Cineinuati platform was the one adopted by the Democratic 
National Convention of 1856, which nominated James Buchanan for 
the Presidency. In this convention, Mr. Douglas, on one ballot, 
received 121 of the 295 votes cast. Of course this convention was 
in favor of the extension of slavery, and was heartily supported by 
Douglas. 



54 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

bank. And I remind hini of another piece of history on 
the question of respect for judicial decisions, and it is a 
piece of Illinois histor3% belonging- to a time when the 
large party to which Judge Douglas belonged, were dis- 
5 pleased with a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, 
because they had decided that a Governor could not re- 
move a Secretary of State. You will find the whole story 
in Ford's History of Illinois, and I know that Judge 
Douglas will not deny that he was then in favor of over- 

10 slaughing that decision by the mode of adding five new 
Judges, so as to vote down the four old ones. Xot only so, 
but it ended in the Judge's sitting down on that iTnj bench as 
one of the fire new Judges to break down the four old ones. It 
was in this w^ij^ precisely that he got his title of Judge. 

15 Now% when the Judge tells me that men appointed condi- 
tionally to sit as members of a court, will have to be cate- 
chised beforehand upon some subject, I say, " You know, 
Judge; you have tried it." \Vhen he says a court of this 
kind Mill lose the confidence of all men, will be prostituted 

20 and disgraced by such a proceeding, I say, " You know 
best, Judge; j^ou have been through the mill." But I can- 
not shake Judge Douglas's teeth loose from the Dred Scott 
decision. Like some obstinate animal (I mean no dis- 
respect), that will hang on when he has once got his teeth 

25 fixed; you may cut off a leg, or you may tear away an arm, 
still he will not relax his hold. And so I may point out 
to the Judge, and say that he is bespattered all over, from 
the beginning of his political life to the j)resent time, with 
attacks upon judicial decisions — I may cut off limb after 

30 limb of his public record, and strive to wrench him from 
a single dictum of the court — yet I cannot divert him from 
it. He hangs, to the last, to the Dred Scott decision. 
These things show there is a purpose stro)ig as death and 
eternity for which he adheres to this decision, and for which 

35 he will adhere to aU other decisions of the same court. 

A Hibernian — " Give us something besides Drid Scott." 

INIr. Lincoln — Yes; no doubt you want to hear something 

that don't hurt. Now, having spoken of the Dred Scott 

decision, one more word and I am done. Henry Clay, my 



Lincoln's speech, august 21, 1858 55 

beau ideal of a statesman, the man for whom I fought all 
my humble life — Henry Clay once said of a class of men 
who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate 
emancipation, that they must, if they would do this, g"o 
back to the era of our Independence, and muzzle the can- 5 
non which thunders its annual joyous return; they must 
blow out the moral lig-hts around us; they must penetrate 
the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty; 
and then, and not till then, could thej^ perpetuate slavery 
in this country! To my thinking", Judg'e Douglas is, by 10 
his example and vast influence, doing that very thing in 
this community, when he says that the negro has nothing 
in the Declaration of Independence. Henrj" Clay plainly 
understood the contrary. Judg"e Doug'las is going back to 
the era of our Revolution, and to the extent of his abilit}^ 15 
muzzling the cannon which thunders its annual joyous 
return. AVhen he invites any people, willing to have 
slavery, to establish it, he is blowing out the moral lights 
around us. When he says he " cares not whether slavery 
is voti>d down or voted up " — that it is a sacred right of 20 
self-government — he is, in my judgment, penetrating the 
human soul and eradicating the light of reason and the 
love of liberty in this American people. And now I will 
only say that when, bj'^ all these means and appliances, 
Judge Douglas shall succeed in bringing public sentiment 25 
to an exact accordance with his own views — when these 
vast assemblages shall echo back all these sentiments — 
when they shall come to repeat his views and to avow his 
principles, and to say all that he saj's on these mighty 
questions — then it needs only the formality of the second 30 
Dred Scott decision, which he indorses in advance, to make 
slaverj' alike lawful in all the states — old as well as new, 
North as well as South. 

My friends, that ends the chapter. The Judge can take 
his half-hour. 



56 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 



MR. DOUGLAS'S EEPLY 

Fellow-citizexs: I will now occupy- the half -hour al- 
lotted to me in replying to Mr. Lincoln. The tirst point to 
which I will call your attention is, as to what I said about 
the organization of the Republican party in 1854, and the 
5 platform that was formed on the 5th of October, of that 
year, and I will then put the question to Mr. Lincoln, 
whether or not, he approves of each article in that plat- 
form, and ask for a specific answer. I did not charge him 
with being a member of the committee which reported 
10 that platform. I charged that that platform was the plat- 
form of the Republican party adopted by them. The fact 
that it was the platform of the Republican party is not 
denied, but Mr. Lincoln now says, that although his name 
was on the committee which reported it, he does not 
15 think he w^as there, but thinks he w as in Tazewell, holding 
court. Now, I w^ant to remind Mr. Lincoln that he w^as 
at Springfield when that convention was held and those 
resolutions adopted. 

The point I am going to remind Mr. Lincoln of is this: 
20 that after I had made my speech in 1854, during the fair, 
he gave me notice that he was going to reply to me the 
next day. I was sick at the time, but I stayed over in 
Springfield to bear his reply and to reply to him. On that 
day this very convention, the resolutions adopted bj^ 
25 w^hich I have read, was to meet in the Senate chamber. 
He spoke in the hall of the House; and when he got 
through his speech — my recollection is distinct, and I 
shall never forget it— Mr. Codding" walked in as I took the 
stand to reply, and gave notice that the Republican State 
30 Convention would meet instantly in the Senate chamber, 
and called upon the Republicans to retire there and go 
into this very convention, instead of remaining and listen- 
ing to me. 

37 Ichabod Codding (1811-66) was a Presbyterian clergyman and an 
eloquent anti-slavery lecturer. He was also, a member of the Bloom- 
ington Convention. 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 57 

In the first place, Mr. Lincoln was selected by the very- 
men who made the Kepublican organization, on that 
day, to reply to me. He spoke for them and for that 
party, and he was the leader of the party; and on the very 
day he made his speech in reply to me, preaching- up this 5 
same doctrine of negro equality, under the Declaration of 
Independence, this Republican party met in convention. 
Another evidence that he was acting" in concert with them 
is to be found in the fact that that convention waited an 
hour after its time of meeting- to hear Lincoln's speech, 10 
and Codding-, one of their leading- men, marched in the mo- 
ment Lincoln got through, and gave notice that they did 
not want to hear me, and would proceed with the business 
of the convention. Still another fact. I have here a 
newspaper printed at Springfield, Mr. Lincoln's own town, 15 
in October, 1854, a few days afterward, publishing these 
resolutions, charging Mr. Lincoln with entertaining these 
sentiments, and trjing to prove that they were also the 
sentiments of Mr. Yates, then candidate for Congress. 
This has been published on Mr. Lincoln over and over oq 
again, and never before has he denied it. 

But, my friends, this denial of his that he did not act 
on the committee, is a miserable quibble to avoid the main 
issue, which is, that this Republican platform declares in 
favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law. 25 
Has Lincoln answered whether he indorsed that or not? 
I called his attention to it when I first addressed you, and 
asked him for an answer, and I then predicted that he 
would not answer. How does he answer? Why, that he 
was not on the committee that wrote the resolutions. I 30 
then i^peated the next proposition contained in the reso- 
lutions, which was to restrict slavery in those states in 
which it exists, and asked him whether he indorsed it. 
Does he answer yes, or no? He says in reply, " I was not 
on the committee at the time; I was up in Tazewell." The 35 
next question I put to him was, whether he was in favor 
of prohibiting the admission of any more slave states 
into the Union. I put the question to him distinctly, 
■whether, if the people of the territorj^ when they had 



58 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

sufficient population to make a state, should form their 
Constitution recog-nizing- slavery, he would vote for or 
against its admission. He is a candidate for the United 
States Senate, and it is possible, if he should be elected, 
5 that he would have to vote directly on that question. I 
asked him to answer me and you, whether he would vote 
to admit a state into the Union, with slavery or without 
it, as its own people might choose. He did not answer 
that question. He dodges that question also, under the 

10 cover that he was not on the committee at the time, that 
he was not present when the platform was made. I want 
to know if he should happen to be in the Senate when a 
state applied for admission, with a Constitution acceptable 
to her own people, he would vote to admit that State, if 

15 slavery was one of its institutions. He avoids the answer. 

It is true he gives the Abolitionists to understand by a 

hint that he would not vote to admit such a state. And 

why? He goes on to say that the man who would talk 

about giving each state the right to have slavery, or not, 

20 as it pleased, is akin to the man who would muzzle the 
guns which thunder forth the annual joyous return of 
the day of our independence. He says that that kind of 
talk is easting a blight on the glory of this country. 
What is the meaning of that? That he is not in favor of 

25 each state having the right to do as it pleases on the 
slavery question? I will put the question to him again 
and again, and I intend to force it out of him. 

Then again, this platform which was made at Spring- 
field by his own partj', when he was its acknowledged 

30 head, provides that Republicans will insist on the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia, and I asked 
Lincoln specifically whether he agreed with them in that? 
[" Did you get an answer? "] He is afraid to answer it. 
He knows I will trot him down to Egypt. I intend to 

35 make him answer there, or I will show the people of Illi- 
nois that he does not intend to answer these questions. 
The convention to which I have been alluding goes a little 
further, and pledges itself to exclude slavery from all the 
territories over which the General Government has exclii- 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 59 

sive jurisdiction North of 30° 30', as well as South 38. 
Now I want to know whether he approves that provision. 
I want him to answer, and when he does, I want to know 
his opinion on another point, which is, whether he will 
redeem the pledge of this platform and resist the acquire- 5 
ment of any more territory unless slavery therein shall 
be forever prohibited. I want him to answer this last 
question. All of the questions I have put to him are 
practical questions — questions based upon the funda- 
mental principles of the Black Kepublican party, and I 10 
want to know whether he is the first, last, and only choice 
of a party with whom he does not agree in principle. He 
does not deny but that that principle was unanimously 
adopted by the llepublican party; he does not deny that 
the whole Republican partj^ is pledged to it; he does not 15 
deny that a man who is not faithful to it is faithless to 
the Republican ])arty; and now I want to know whether 
that party is unanimously in fa\or of a man who does not 
adopt that creed and agree with them in their principles: 
I want to know whether the man who does not agree with 20 
them, and who is afraid to avow his differences, and who 
dodges the issue, is the first, last, and only choice of the 
Republican party. 

A voice — "How about the conspiracy?" 

JVIr. Donglas — Never mind, I will come to that soon 25 
enongh. Bnt the platform which I have read to you, not 
only lays down these principles, but it adds: 

Resolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will 
use such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem 
best adai^ted to their accomplishment, and that we will 30 
support no man for office, under the general or state gov- 
ernment, who is not positively and fully committed to the 
support of these ^jrinciples, and w^hose personal character 
and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable, and who 
shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 35 

^*' Evidently north and south should be transposed. The context 
shows plainly that either Mr. Donglas inadvertently transposed the 
words, or the printers confused them in setting the type. 



60 SPEECHES OF LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

The Black Eepublican party stand pledged that they 
will never support Lincoln until he has pledged himself to 
that platform, but he cannot devise his answer; he has not 
made up his mind whether he will or not. He talked 
5 about everything else he could think of to occupy his hour 
and a half, and when he could not think of anything more 
to say, without an excuse for refusing to answer these 
questions, he sat down long before his time was out. 

In relation to Mr. Lincoln's charge of conspiracy against 
10 me, I have a word to say. In his speech to-day he quotes 
a playful part of his speech at Springfield, about Stephen, 
and James, and Franklin, and Roger, and says that I did 
not take exception to it. I did not answer it, and he re- 
peats it again. 1 did not take exception to this figure of 
15 his. He has a right to be as playful as he pleases in 
throwing his arguments together, and I will not object; 
but I did take objection to his second Springfield speech, 
in which he stated that he intended his first speech as a 
charge of corruption or conspiracy against the Supreme 
20 Court of the United States, President Pierce, President 
Buchanan, and myself. That gave the offensive character 
to the charge. He then said that when he made it he did 
not know whether it was true or not, but inasmuch as 
Judge Douglas had not denied it, although he had replied 
25 to the other parts of his speech three times, he repeated it 
as a charge of conspiracy against me, thus charging me 
with moral turpitude. When he put it in that form, I did 
say, that inasmuch as he repeated the charge simply be- 
cause I had not denied it, I would deprive him of the 
30 opportunity of ever repeating it again, by declaring that 
it was in all its bearings an infamous lie. He says he will 
repeat it until I answer his folly and nonsense, about Ste- 
phen, and Franklin, and Roger, and Bob, and James. 
He studied that out— prepared that one sentence with 
35 the greatest care, committed it to memorj^ and put it in 
his first Springfield speech, and now he carries that speech 
around and reads that sentence to show how pretty it is. 
His vanity is wounded because I will not go into that 
beautiful figure of his about the building of a house. All 



Douglas's speech, august 21, 1858 61 

I have to say is, that I am not green enough to let him 
make a charge which he acknowleclg-es he does not know to 
be true, and then take up m^^ time in answering it, when 
I know it to be false and nobody else knows it to be true. 

I have not brought a charge of moral turpitude against 5 
him. When he, or any other man, brings one against me, 
instead of disproving it, I will say that it is a lie, and let 
him prove it if he can. 

1 have lived twenty-five years in Illinois. I have served 
you with all the fidelity and ability which I possess, and 10 
Mr. Lincoln is at liberty to attack my public action, my 
votes, and my conduct; but when he dares to attack my 
moral integrity, by a charge of conspiracy between myself. 
Chief Justice Taney and the Supreme Court, and two 
Presidents of the United States, 1 will repel it. 15 

Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and 
truth, merely on his own iijsc dixit, to arraign President 
Buchanan, President Pierce, and nine Judges of the Su- 
preme Court, not one of whom would be complimented by 
being put on an equality with him. There is an unpar- 20 
donable presumption in a man putting himself up before 
thousands of people, and pretending that his //>.sr di.tit, 
without proof, without fact, and without truth, is enough 
to bring down and destroy the purest and best of living 
men. 25 

Fellow-citizens, my time is fast expiring; I must pass on. 
Mr. Lincoln wants to know why I voted against ^Vv. 
Chase's amendment to the Nebraska bill. I will tell him. 
In the first place, the bill already conferred all the power 
which Congress had, by giving the people the whole power 30 
over the subject. Chase offered a proviso that they might 
abolish slavery, which by implication would convey the 
idea that they could prohibit by not introducing that insti- 
tution. General Cass asked him to modify his amendment, 
so as to provide that the people might either prohibit or 35 
introduce slavery, and thus make it fair and equal. Chase 
refused to so modify his proviso, and then General Cass 
and all the rest of us, voted it down. Those facts appear 
on the journals and debates of Congress, where Mr. Lin- 



62 SPEECHES OF LINCOLX AXD DOUGLAS 

coin found the charge, and if he had told the whole truth, 
there would have been no necessity for nie to occupj^ your 
time in explaining- the matter. 

]Mr. Lincoln wants to know why the word " state," as 
Swell as "territory," was i^ut into the Nebraska bill? I 
will tell him. It was put there to meet just such false 
arguments as he has been adducing. That first, not only 
the people of the territories should do as they pleased, 
but that when they come to be admitted as states, they 

10 should come into the Union with or without slaverj-, as 
the people determined, I meant to knock in the head this 
Abolition doctrine of Mr, Lincoln's, that there shall be no 
more slave states, even if the people want them. And it 
does not do for him to say, or for- any other Black Re- 

15 publican to say, that there is nobody in favor of the doc- 
trine of no more slave states, and that nobody wants to 
interfere with the rig-ht of the people to do as they jDlease. 
What was the origin of the Missouri difficulty and the 
Missouri Compromise? The people of Missouri formed a 

20 Constitution as a slave state, and asked admission into the 
Union, but the Freesoil party of the North being- in a 
majority, refused to admit her because she had slavery as 
one of her institutions. Hence this first slavery ag-itation 
arose upon a state and not upon a territory, and yet ]\Ir, 

25 Lincoln does not know why the word state was placed in 
the Kansas-Xebras'ka bill. The whole Abolition ag-itation 
arose on that doctrine of prohibiting a state from coming 
in with slavery or not, as it pleased, and that same doc- 
trine is here in this Republican platform of 1854; it has 

30 never been repealed; and every Black Republican stands 
pledged by that platform, never to vote for any man who is 
not in favor of it. Yet ]\lr, Lincoln does not know that 
there is a man in the world who is in favor of preventing 
a state from coming in as it pleases, notwithstanding, 

35 The Springfield platform saj's that thej', the Republican 
party, will not allow a state to conje in under such cir- 
cumstances. He is an ignorant man. 

Now you see that upon these very points I am as far 
from bringing Mr. Lincoln up to the line as I ever was be- 



Douglas's speech, aitgust 21, 1858 63 

fore. He does not want to avow his principles. I do want 
to avow mine, as clear as sunlight in midday. Democracy- 
is founded upon tlie eternal principle of right. The 
plainer these principles are avowed before the people, the 
stronger will be the support which they will receive. I 5 
only wish I had the power to make them so clear that they 
would shine in the heavens for every man, woman, and 
child to read. The first of those principles that I would 
proclaim would be in opposition to ]Mr. Lincoln's doctrine 
of uniformity between the difl'erent states, and I would 10 
declare instead the sovereign right of each state to decide 
the slavery question as well as all other domestic questions 
for itself without interference^ from any other state 
or power whatsoever. 

When that princii)]e is recognized, j'ou will have peace 15 
and harmony and fraternal feeling between all the states 
of this Union; until 3'ou do recognize that doctrine, there 
will be sectional warfare agitating and distracting the 
country. What does Mr. Lincoln propose? He says that 
the L'nion cannot exist divided into free and slave states. 20 
If it cannot endure thus divided, then he must strive to 
make them all free or all slave, which will inevitably bring 
about a dissolution of the Union. 

Cenllemcn, 1 am told that my time is out, and I am 
obliged to stop. 25 



English Classic Series-continued. 



63 The Antigone of Sophocles. 

English Version by Thos. Franck- 
lin, D.D. 

64 Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

(Selected Poems.) 

65 Robert Browning. (Selected 

Poems.) 

66 Addison's Spectator. (Selec'ns.) 

67 Scenes frunx Oeorge Bliot's 

Adam Bede. 

68 Matthew Arnold's Cultaro and 

Anarchy. 

69 DeQuincey's Joan of Arc. 

70 Carlyle's Essay on Barns. 

71 Byron's Childe Harold's Pil. 

grimage. 

72 Poe's Raven, and other Poems. 

73 & 74 Macaulay's liOrd Cllve. 

(Double Number.) 

76 Webster's Reply to Hayne. 

76&77 Macaulay's Lays of An- 
cient Rome, (Double Number.) 

78 American Patriotic Selections: 

Declaration of Independence, 
Washiugtou's Farewell Ad- 
dress, Liincoin's Gettysburg 
Speech, etc. 

79 & 80 Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

(Condensed.) 

81 & 82 Scott's Marmion. (Con- 
densed.) 

83 & 84 Pope's Essay on Man. 

85 Shelley's Skylark, Adonals. and 

other Poems. 

86 Dickens's Cricket on the 

Hearth. 

87 Spencer's Philosophy of Style* 

88 Lamb's Essays of Ella. 

89 Cowper's Task, Book IL 

90 Wordsworth's Selected PoemSt 

91 Tennyson's The Holy Grail, and 

Sir Galahad. 

92 Addison's Cato. 

93 Irving' 8 Westminster Abbey^ 

and Christmas Sketches. 

94 & 95 Macaulay's Earl .of Chat- 

ham. Second Essay.* 

96 Early Engrlish Ballads. 

97 Skelton, Wyatt, and Snrrej, 

(Selected Poems.) 

98 Edwin Arnold. (Selected PoemS.) 

99 Caxton and Daniel. (Selections.) 

100 Fuller and Hooker. (Selections.) 

101 Marlowe's Jew of Malta. (Con> 

densed.) 

102-103 Macaulay's Essay on Mil- 
ton. 

104>105 Macaulay's Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

106 Macaulay's Essay on Bos- 
well's Johnson. 



107 Mandeville's Travels and Wy- 
cliflfe's Bible. (Selections.) 

108-109 Macaulay's Essay on Fred- 
erick tlie Great. 

110-111 Milton's Samson Agonis- 
tes. I 

112-113-114 Franklin's Autobiog- 
raphy. 

115-116 Herodotus's Stories of 
Croesus, Cyrus, and Babylon. 

117 Irving' 8 Alhambra. 

118 Burke's Present Discontents. 

119 Burke's Speech on Concilia- 

tion with American Colonies. 

120 Macaulay's Essay on Byron. 
131-132 Motley's Peter the Great. 
133 Emerson's American Scholar. 
124 Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. 
135-136 Longffellow's Evangeline. 

127 Andersen's Danish Fairy Tales. 
(Selected.) 

128 Tennyson's The Coming of 
Arthur, and The Passing of 
Arthur. 

129 Lowell's The Tision of Sir 
Launfal, and other Poems. 

130 Whittier's Songs of Labor, and 

other Poems. 

131 Words of Abraham Lincoln. 

132 Grimm's German Fairy Tales. 
(Selected.) ^ 

133 JEsop's Fables. (Selected.) 

134 Arabian Mights. Aladdin, or 
the AVonderful Lamp. 

135-36 The Psalter. 

137-38 Scott's Ivanhoe. (Con- 
densed.) 

139-40 Scott's Kenilworth. (Con- 
densed.) 

141-42 Scott's The Talisman. (Con- 
densed.) 

143 Gods and Heroes of the North. 

144-45 Pope's Iliad of Honter. 
(Selections from Books I.-Vlll.) 

146 Four Mediaeval Chroniclers. 

147 Dante's Inferno. (Condensed.) 
148-49 The Book of Job. (Revised 

Version.) 

150 Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew. By 
Georgiana M. Craik. 

151 The Niirnberg Stove. ByOuida. 

152 Hayne's Speech. To which 
Webster replied. 

153 Alice's Adventures in Wo»]- 
derlaiid. (Condensed.) By Lewis 

Carroll. 

154-155 Defoe's Journal of the 
Plague. (Condensed.) 

156-157 More's Utopia. (Con- 
densed.) 



ADDITIONAL NUMBERit ON NEXT PAGE. 



ENGLtSH Classic Series-continued. 



158-159 Lamb*a Essays. (Selec- 
tions.) 

160-161 Burke's Reflections on 
the French Revolution. 

162-163 Macaulay'* History off 
England, Chaptei- 1. Complete. 

164-165-166 Prescott's Conquest 
of Mexico. (Condensed.) 

167 L-ongfellow's Voices of the 
Night, and other poems. 

168 Hawthorne's Wonder Book. 
Selected Tales. 

169 DeQuiucey's Flight of a Tar- 
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170-171-173 George Eliot's Silas 

.. « Marner. Complete. 

173 Ruskin's King of the Golden 
River, and Dame Wiggins of 
Lee and her Seven Wonderful 
Cats. 

174-175 Irving's Tales of a Trav- 
eler. 

176 Raskin's Of Kings* Treasuries. 
First half of Sesame and Lilies. 
Complete. 

177 Raskin's Of Queens' Gardens. 

Second half of Sesame and Lilies. 
Complete. 

1 78 Macaulay's L,ife of Johnson. 
179-180 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. 
181-183-183 Wykes's Shakespeare 

Reader. 
184 Hawthorne's Grandfather's 

Chair. Part I. Complete. 
185-186 Southey's Life of Nelson. 

Condensed. 
187 Curtis's The Public Duty of 

Educated Men. 
188-189 Hawthorne's Twice-Told 

Tales. Selected, 
190-191 Chesterfield's Letters to 

His Son, 
193 English and American Son 

nets. 

193 Emerson's Self-Reliance. 

194 Emerson's Compensation. 
195-196 Tennysoa's The Princess, 
197-198 Pope's Homer's Iliad. 

Books I., FI., XXII., and 

XXI V . 
199 Plato's Crito 
300 Qui da's A IW>g of Flanders 
301-303 Dryden'» Palamon and 

Arcite. 
303 Hawthorne'ti Snow-Image, 

The Great Stone Face, Little 

Daflfydowndillv. 
804 Foe's Gold Bug. 



305 Holmes' Poems. Selected 
o«f "2,9^ Kingsley's Water-Babie* 

308 Thomas Hood's Poems. S< 
lected. 

309 Tennyson's Palace of Art, an 

other Poems. 

310 Browning's Saul, and othe 
Poems. 

311 Matthew Arnold's Poems 
Selected, 



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